Although the burden of those eight years could have been one week lighter if Evie had told him when they first met again. Or had she not intended to tell him and Jagger forced her hand? He fought back a flare of resentment. Now was not the time.
“Your mom said no, and she’s the person who looks after you.” Zane pushed himself to his feet. “That means you gotta do what she says.”
“But you’re my dad. You have to look after me, too. What do you say?”
Hell. Were all eight-year-olds that smart? He didn’t know. Hell, he knew nothing about kids and he wasn’t leading a family kind of life. He was a bachelor through and through. So how the hell was he supposed to handle this? Pay the occasional visit? Show up on the weekend and take the boy to a game? He had no frame of reference, no skills, no one to guide him or tell him what to do.
“I say you gotta listen to your mother.”
Ty spun around and pushed past Evie, spilling his motorcycles on the floor. “I thought you were cool, but you’re just the same as Mom.” He stormed into his bedroom and slammed the door.
“He just needs some time,” Evie said softly. “He doesn’t deal well with change and this is a lot to handle.”
“I get it.” More than got it. If he hadn’t developed self-restraint over the years, he’d be slamming the door behind him, jumping on his bike and riding until he’d had time to process everything and clear his head. But, of course, he didn’t have that luxury. Not with Evie and his son to protect.
“Why didn’t you tell me when we first met?” His words came out sharper than he intended, but he couldn’t hide the emotion that burned in his chest.
Evie hugged herself and leaned against the wall. “I just … I didn’t know if you’d want him and I didn’t want him to get hurt and I wasn’t sure about involving him in your biker life. I was going to talk to you about him first, and then I wanted it to be perfect, a meeting in a neutral space—”
“There is no perfect.” He cut her off, his hands curling into fists. “You should have told me right away. I lost even more time—”
“Don’t take out your guilt on me,” she snapped. “You’re the one who left. You’re the one who decided to drop off the face of the earth. You’re the one who came back and assumed Ty was Mark’s son.”
Zane turned and smashed his fist into the wall, making the cheap bungalow shake. “And you were the one who jumped into bed with the first man who crossed your path.” He regretted the words the moment they dropped from his lips and tried to soften the blow. “I get that you were alone, but I have never broken a promise. I came back, Evie.” His voice caught as his emotion spilled over. “Fuck. I came back.”
And then she was pressed up against him, holding him tight, soothing his pain just as she had done the day they met. “I know you did.”
They stood in silence and he buried his face in her hair, breathing in the familiar floral scent, wishing he could turn back the clock and live his life all over again.
“What are you going to do?” she murmured against his chest. “Do you want to … are you going to be around for him?”
“He’s my boy.” Why would she ask that question? Did she honestly think he would walk away again? Did she think he’d leave his son without a father?
“I got lots of money,” he continued. “Anything you need—”
Evie pulled away, frowning. “I don’t want your money. We do okay.”
“You don’t do okay.” Overwhelmed by his feelings, and unable to get it together, he raised his voice and struggled against a tidal wave of guilt. “Living near a trailer park at the edge of town and driving a shit vehicle that’s about to fall apart is not okay. Working in a shop that’s almost all guys, with bikers coming in and out all the time, and a boss who goes missing when the Jacks show up—which should be a warning to you—is not okay.” Everything he’d held inside since the moment he saw Ty erupted in a burst of concerned anger. “I want my boy to have what you had—a nice house with a big yard in some leafy suburb where everyone is decent—”
“Like my mother?” Her face tightened. “You know that’s all an illusion. Good people and bad people are everywhere, Zane. It doesn’t matter whether there are nice cars in the driveways, or trees on the street. Sometimes the worst people can be found in the nicest homes.”
“And worse people can be found in the worst homes,” he responded. “And the fucking scum-of-the-earth, cock-sucking murderous bastards of the world can be found in Red River where you are definitely not going tonight. You and Viper. That’s over.” His body shook as he drowned in a maelstrom of fear, anger and regret. “I’ll buy you and Ty a house somewhere nice where you can meet nice people. And I’ll buy you a decent car. Something safe. And Ty can have all the toy motorcycles he wants.”