It didn’t matter that he was Hyde’s biological father, or that the boy was smitten with him, the court had a procedure to follow and questions were already being asked about Zeb’s criminal record. We were scheduled to have our first hearing in front of a judge on Monday, and I knew he was a nervous wreck about it. There was nothing he could do to change his past and it seemed entirely unfair that it was going to have such a huge impact on his future. He needed me to be at the top of my game, to have my legal ducks all in a row to fight this fight for him. The idea of failing Zeb and little Hyde ripped at me, and now it was the possibility of not coming through for the green-eyed duo that kept me awake at night instead of sweaty, sexy dreams.
While the professional distance was necessary and should have been in place from the beginning, it didn’t stop me from wishing things were different and longing for the date that now seemed like nothing more than a collection of empty words. My father had hammered into me over and over again that the only thing I should strive for was perfection, for flawlessness in my schooling and then in my business. To him, that was where my value had always been, in tangible and external manifestations of success. Wanting something or someone for myself on a personal level was frivolous and selfish and I had denied myself that luxury over and over again. It was one of the reasons I was no good with men. I didn’t know how to be with one just because I wanted him.
My entire life I had sought out partners whom I could take home and who could withstand my father’s scrutiny. They had to look right, act right, and come from the right background. How they made me feel, how they treated me, how we were together when the lights went out were all secondary to how my father would perceive them. It was all show and never an actual relationship. Nathan was the prime example of that. The one time my father seemed to approve of anything I did was when Nathan put a ring on my finger. It didn’t matter that we bored each other silly and lacked any kind of passion or heat.
As though my intense and swirling thoughts had pulled Zeb into the vortex of self-pity I was lost in, my phone vibrated in my hand with a message from him as I wandered aimlessly through the empty rooms.
I shivered at the sight of his name and then silently scolded myself for having such a powerful reaction to only his name on the screen. His message was simple but for some reason it felt full of more meaning and emotion than the three words staring up at me indicated.
Can you talk?
I bit my lip and decided how to answer. I didn’t talk to my clients after office hours were done for the day and I was already having a really hard time keeping the professional and personal lines clear where he and this case were concerned. I sighed and tapped out:
I can. Do you want me to call you?
I had started this process as his friend first and it wasn’t fair to him that my heart was pulling itself apart because of his situation. He was probably nervous and scared about what was coming next week, and I was the only one who could put some of that at ease.
There wasn’t a response for a long couple of minutes and I hated that all I could do was stare at my phone and pace back and forth while I waited to see what he was going to say. I was acting like a smitten teenager and it was ridiculous. I snorted at myself and headed into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of wine when the phone rang, making me jump. I wasn’t prepared for him to call me right that moment and had a bout of anxiety about answering the call before I told myself to man up and swiped my finger across the screen.
“Hey. Everything all right?” I heard a car honk its horn wherever he was calling from, and he mumbled something that wasn’t directed at me before answering.
“Fuck no. I’m freaking out over this court date on Monday. I can’t think straight and I’m screwing things up left and right, which isn’t good when you deal with power tools most of the day.” He sighed and I so wanted to give him a hug. “I ordered the wrong color paint for the living room in the house I’m working on and the painters sprayed it today. It’s blue . . . like really goddamn blue, and now I need to fix it so my guys don’t kill me. I have to go get a layer of primer on the walls so the paint crew can go in and respray tomorrow. I’ve been working my crew like crazy because I’ve been missing so much work lately and this may be the last straw. I’m gonna have to work all night. I need you to tell me everything will be all right, Sayer. I’m going out of my mind over here.”
I didn’t want to lie to him, so I huffed out a breath and told him, “The case has some challenges, Zeb. We’ve talked about those, but the court advocate has seen how great you are with Hyde and it’s obvious the best place for him is with you. We just need to convince the court of that and you need to leave that to me. That’s why I’m your plan, remember?”
He swore again and I heard his car door open and shuffling as he got in. “I just wish I didn’t have that arrest staring me in the face every time I think about possible reasons the judge could keep Hyde from me.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as his remorse over his past misdeeds heavily laced his words. “All you can do is be thankful that no matter how bad the circumstances might’ve been that led you there, they did, in a roundabout way, lead you to Hyde. I see the way you look at him, Zeb. There is no regret there even if the path to him might have been bumpy.”