Completely unaware, she leaned back in through the car door and gathered her things, slung a laptop case over her shoulder, did the same with her purse, the girl all dressed up in work clothes and heels.
A lump knotted at the base of my throat. Heavy. Just as heavy as the boulder that sat in my stomach.
She stepped back and slammed the door. Took a single step toward the interior garage door leading into the house.
“Kenzie.” It was ragged.
Broken.
Bristling with blame.
With her back to me, she froze, her shoulders stuttering up and down. Like she was trying to find the breath I’d knocked from her. Trying to find the ground I’d yanked from beneath her feet.
Kinda sucked when just your presence held the power to cause that effect.
Slowly she turned, the straps of her bags sliding down her arm. They dropped with a thud to the floor.
Face ashen.
Eyes wide.
Soul shocked.
“Kenzie,” I chanced again, taking a step forward, hoping it was soft enough she’d get I wasn’t there to cause her more pain.
Even though I wasn’t fool enough to think this encounter wasn’t going to hurt.
She took one step back, blinked like she were trying to focus, before she started shaking her head. “No.”
“Kenzie…please…not here to cause you trouble.”
A sob tore from her and she fisted her hand at her mouth. Like she was trying to hold it in. Her eyes pinched so deeply at the corners I got the feeling she was doing her best to shut me out but didn’t trust me enough to look away.
Couldn’t blame her.
That was all on me.
“Then what are you doing here?” she finally demanded, voice a rasp of accusation and tears.
I cleared my throat. “I’m here because five years ago I made the biggest mistake of my life. Five years ago I signed away my son.”
Desperation had me taking another step forward. “And I know I don’t have the right to be here, Kenzie. That all those mistakes I made cost me that right. But I need to know he’s okay. Need to know that you’re both okay.”
Nerves pricked my flesh. I raked a hand through my hair, doing my best to contain it. To, for once, stand up and really be a man. I met the fear in her gaze. “I need to see him, Kenz. If you’ll let me, I need to see my son.”
The last was a breath, and with the claim she flinched like I’d struck her.
“Why now?” she asked, mouth trembling. “Why now, after all this time?”
Glancing to the ground off to the side, I rubbed a hand over my face to clear the tension that stretched taut between us.
Anger.
Hostility.
And old, old pain I wasn’t sure would ever go away.
“Because someone showed me recently what it’s like to be brave.”
Brave.
Brown eyes moved over me. Like maybe she was just then realizing how different I looked since the last time she saw me, the ink now covering almost every exposed inch of skin.
The torment I’d written there.
Hers.
Mine.
She winced when she locked on Brendon’s name that was woven through his song.
She finally tore her attention up to my eyes that probably told more than the ink ever could.
Because I was sorry.
So fucking sorry.
But I didn’t know if that made a damned difference in the grand scheme of things.
If it was worth the upheaval of their lives. Because no question, the house behind her was a home. A place she lived with our son and the guy she’d married two years ago, something I’d discovered when I got on-line to track her down.
They were a family and I wasn’t sure how I was ever gonna fit because I sure as hell wasn’t there to break it up.
Wasn’t lying when I told her I didn’t come to bring her trouble. But that rarely mattered much since trouble seemed to be tacked to my name.
She chewed at her bottom lip, the way she always used to do when she didn’t know what to do with herself. “I always knew you would come.”
Uneasily, I shifted on my feet and shoved my hands a little deeper in my pockets. “Yeah? Because I never thought I would.”
I watched the heavy bob of her throat. “Because you didn’t want to?”
I gave her a jerk of my head. “No, Kenzie. Because it was the only thing in the world I wanted to do.”
She nodded like she got it, looked me square. “Okay.”
Okay.
I puffed out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
Okay.
She lifted her chin toward the neighborhood park where I’d been waiting. “I’ll bring him out…wait for us at the park.”
She turned around, then paused. Wavered. Warily, she looked at me from over her shoulder. “Lyrik…he doesn’t…”
She trailed off like she couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud.
Not needing clarification, my head rocked with acceptance.
Of course he didn’t.
Didn’t expect him to know who I was.
I lifted my shoulders in a hapless shrug. “Introduce me however you need to, Kenz. Whatever makes sense. I don’t care. I just want to see him.”
A mournful smile lifted just the corner of her mouth, and she swiped at the moisture clouding her eyes. “I’ll be out in a minute. Brad needs to know.”
Something like jealousy grabbed me.