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Ryder grumbled to himself as he crammed the last of the yogurt containers into the small fridge of the apartment. Rainwater dripped from his jacket onto the kitchen floor, and when his boot slipped, his frustration sizzled into anger.
He couldn’t believe he’d actually put thought into what kind of yogurt Nita might want. Or that he’d stopped for groceries at all. Hadn’t she said there were catering kitchens at most of the properties? But worse was calling her to see where she was.
Jesus, what am I doing?he wondered, as he scouted for a towel and wiped up the water slick on the polished concrete floor.
It wasn’t like he cared about women beyond making sure they got home all right, or that he wasn’t acting like too much of an asshole. He was always clear about what he wanted out of the interaction, and thinking about a woman’s needs beyond sex… well, that just wasn’t in his DNA.
Just as he closed the fridge door, his phone rang, interrupting his frustrated thoughts. He glanced at the screen and saw that it was Lynne. She’d been the biggest mistake he made the week after he got out of prison, although the outcome of that had been the most amazing thing in his life.
Blaze, his six-year-old son.
With an annoyed sigh, he answered the call.
“Asshole, your check is late,” Lynne complained before he even got his phone to his ear.
“You do this every month, and every month you get it the next day,” he muttered.
“I don’t think you realize what a hardship it is, you taking this job right now,” she continued, the whine in her voice setting his nerves even further on edge. “You don’t know what it’s like to get Blaze up, fed, and out in time for the school bus. Or help him with his homework every night.”
“Actually, I know exactly what that’s like,” he said, gripping the towel in a tight fist. “In fact, I drive him to school whenever you ask me to and wait twenty minutes in the pickup line to bring him home from school.”
“Yeah, be lucky I don’t stick to the four days a month in the custody agreement,” she countered bitterly. “I do you all these favors, and then you leave town.”
He gritted his teeth and struggled to find a tone that wouldn’t get her back up. So much depended on finding the right footing with Lynne. She just had to make one complaint to her lawyer, and they’d be back to fighting over every hour he got with Blaze.
Fucking lawyers,he thought for the millionth time.
“I’m on my last job, Lynne,” he replied, injecting calm into his tone. “Once it’s done, I’ll be officially retired. But if you want to, we can work something out if you want to switch to full-on shared custody.”
Lynne’s voice bristled with irritation, as he expected. “The judge gave us the custody that’s best for Blaze. Why would you want to undo that?”
Ryder’s frustration grew, but he knew it was better to avoid arguing about what some random judge thought was best for his son.
“Fine. Is there anything else?” he asked, expecting to hear a thousand complaints about everything wrong in the house he was paying for the two of them to live in.
Lynne hesitated and then said in a softer voice, “Blaze had a nightmare. You know the only thing that calms him down is talking to his daddy.”
Ryder’s heart clenched. Blaze hadn’t had a nightmare in a few months, and both he and Lynne had hoped they’d ended.
The phone rattled and then he heard, “Come here, honey, and talk to daddy.”
In the background he heard could hear his son’s soft whimpers.
“Hi daddy,” Blaze said in halting, shuddering breaths.
Ryder took a deep breath and spoke gently into the phone. “Hey, buddy. Mamma said you had a bad dream.”
“Yeah,” Blaze whispered.
“Wanna tell me about it? You don’t have to if you don’t want to. We can just talk,” Ryder promised, hopping onto the kitchen counter and looking at the floor.
“I th-th-think I can tell you,” his son stammered, and Ryder would have given anything to time travel to Chicago and hold his son.
“Okay, buddy. Take your time. And remember, talking about it feels scary, but it also makes it better, right?”
“Ri-hight,” Blaze agreed. “So… in my dream I was playing with my cars in my room, and then the rug turned into grass and then I was in a forest. But it was a scary forest with black trees. And then I heard a screaming sound and I saw you, but you were standing over a dark cave. And I yelled at you not to go, but you jumped in and you were fighting with a witch and she had a white face and I was so scared—”
Blaze’s voice trembled and became panting sobs.
