Chapter Forty-Seven Tyler
Chapter Forty-Seven
TYLER
EYES LATCHED TO Alexander’s, I continue engaging in our staring contest as he lies on the mattress next to me.
Though he favors me greatly, I notice subtle hints of her here and there.
Marveling at the similarities I memorized when she and I lay face-to-face.
Adoration hums in my chest as he grunts, extending eager fingers toward my stubbled jaw.
Though he doesn’t know what he’s doing—as his motor skills are still developing—God help me, it feels like he’s reaching for me.
Inching over a little, I give him access, his touch igniting both comfort and pain, binding me further into the moment as a little more of the war fog that I’ve been living in disperses.
Staring into my own eyes as I whisper his name.
The ricochet of his namesake almost as harsh as the bullet of truth behind it.
“Did you know ‘Alexander’ means defender? He led from the front and was the first to take the risk, to brave the danger. If you ever do the same, you won’t do it alone.
Not while I breathe,” I murmur as he continues to sear his place into my heart while familiarizing himself with me.
As of now, I’m still too unacquainted with him to be considered a recognizable, full-time presence.
That truth evident as their collective eyes drifted earlier, periodically, in search of Larissa.
The gnaw of my own want for her presence growing since she fled from me.
The need to talk to her outweighing any other, even as the ache to touch damn near burned me alive.
My only comfort is her reaction to me. The flush of her skin and her growing arousal are a temporary balm to the almost kiss I witnessed.
They were so damned close I thought I would crack a fucking tooth.
Frozen in white-hot jealousy while forced to witness what looked like a beginning.
One I can’t, at all, wipe from my memory.
The sincerity of the exchange has me battling the anxiety that comes with it before I will myself back to the present with the babies.
Macey’s sweet exhales hitting my neck as I stroke her back lightly with my fingertips.
When Alexander’s eyes start to slip, I mourn the temporary loss of their company.
Wanting far more with them as a father while knowing I caused this dilemma.
Allowing that pain to filter in, I draw strength from the twin hearts beating next to me. Determined to continue taking each day as it comes. Having not blinked out once since I began my dig, I remain grateful for every good moment I’m granted, including the one I’m in.
Just as Alexander drifts, Macey sinks deeper into me, both succumbing to deep slumber as my phone vibrates on the mattress.
Eyeing the screen, I quickly snatch it up. “Hey, son,” I whisper. “Merry Christmas.”
“Hey, Dad,” Zach greets, voice low. “Are you busy?”
“No, give me a sec, okay?”
“Sure.”
Standing, I gently deposit Macey next to Alexander, taking a mental snapshot as I bring the phone back to my ear. “I’m so glad you called me back.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“The company I’m with are sleeping.”
“Okay … Do you need to go?”
“No, don’t hang up, I really want to talk to you,” I grasp eagerly.
I’ve only managed to catch him a few times by phone since our blowup at King’s.
Both calls cut short—by him. When he made an excuse for not attending Thanksgiving, it took everything I had to allow him the space he needed to come to me.
“I’ve missed you,” I admit, allowing him to hear that ache in my voice. Putting him on speaker, I grab a nearby yellow crochet blanket. Folding it, I drape it over the babies’ legs before clearing all the plastic toys from around their faces, the way Mom told me to.
“D-Dad,” Zach croaks, his tone melancholic as alarm bells go off.
“What’s wrong?”
When silence greets me, I start to calculate flight time, eyeing my still-packed suitcase. “Zach, you’re scaring me. Do you need me?”
“I’m sorry,” he rasps out, and it’s then I know he’s crying. “I’m so fucking sorry, Dad, I didn’t mean it. I mean … I meant some of it, but I didn’t mean to kick you when you were down. We’re all we’ve got … It’s been you and me for so long now. I shouldn’t have—”
“No, God, no, don’t apologize,” I manage through the knot in my throat.
“I fucking hit you. It’s unforgivable.” It’s the rattle in his voice that has my heart bottoming out. Because I know this guilt far too intimately, and it’s nothing I want for him. Closing my eyes to the truth of the position I put him in, I allow my own voice to shake with my truth.
“Listen to me, there’s nothing to forgive.”
“Bullshit, who does that?”
“I did,” I admit earnestly. “I’ve never told you because I’m not at all proud of it, but I took some pretty nasty swings at your grandfather when I was seventeen, and they landed. It was one of the worst nights of my life.”
“Why?”
“Because he was scaring me just as badly as I was scaring you. And I was just as angry and disappointed as you are.”
“I’m not disappointed, I mean, I was, but I was more scared than anything.”
“It’s okay to be both, son. I don’t blame you one bit.”
“Well, thanks for telling me, but it doesn’t make me feel any better—it just makes me fucking sad. I’m so ashamed.”
“Don’t be. What I did was reckless and stupid, and damn near did get me killed.”
“Damn it, Dad—”
“Wait, before you pounce, know that with all the shit I’ve done, and I’ve done plenty, I’m begging you to believe I had a good reason to put myself at risk, and I’ll give you that reason as soon as I’m able to.
” I gaze on at both reasons as I speak. “A reason far more substantial than my selfish pain. I swear this to you, son, okay?”
“I believe you. Because the thing is, I do know you. I do. And the worst part is, you were so happy to see me before I … Fuck,” he croaks.
“You told me you needed me, and I can’t, I can’t forget the look on your face.
It’s eating me alive.” His stuttered breaths come harsher as we both hemorrhage over the line.
“My whole life, you’ve been nothing but good to me, no matter the circumstances, and I feel like I erased everything when I struck you—”
“Stop, right there,” I clip hoarsely. “I mean it. There’s nothing on this earth you could ever do that will erase an ounce of my love for you or the son you are to me. Know that. I’m so lucky to call you mine.”
The sentiment rings true in the full-circle moment I have as a father, my dad’s words similar the day I left home and broke his heart. The sight of him pinching every bill in his wallet in offering forever painfully ingrained.
“Dad, please, just let me be sorry, I can’t ever take that back.”
“And I don’t ever want you to, and here’s why—that fear and anger you felt is your love for me.
And I felt that more than anything else that day.
I needed to see it, to see my reflection in your eyes, just as much as you need your dad to finally do what he’s been promising and failing to do for too long—get his shit together. ”
“And now?”
“I still have a lot of work to do, but I’m trying really hard to get back to some semblance of the man who raised you, and I want it now, Zach, truly.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Not in detail, but I can say I started to feel things again, took a mission too far, and it cost me—dearly.”
It’s then that I sense I’m not alone and turn to see Larissa standing in the doorway of the villa. Full wine glass in one hand, bottle in another. Her idle posture telling me that she’s been there for some time. Eyes locked, I free myself to speak what truth comes.
“The person I hurt on that mission is staring at me right now, and I don’t think she’ll ever trust me again, but I’m trying to earn it,” I admit, picking up the phone from the mattress and speaking into the receiver as I slowly start to make my way toward her.
“Her? Holy shit, Dad, you met someone?”
I grimace at that pathetic truth. “I would describe it more like a slow-motion collision, but yes.” In response, she sips her wine as if I’m reporting the weather.
“Finally,” he utters in relief. “Is that why you’re whispering? Do you need to go?”
I’m halfway to her when she jerks her chin, announcing her departure, and I hold up my hand in a plea, my words for both. “No, talk to me.”
“Okay, but it sounds like you’re a bit preoccupied. I just wanted to say I’m sorry and Merry Christmas.”
Keeping her eyes, phone still in hand, I close the space before tentatively grabbing the glass from her, which she relinquishes easily. Mouthing a “thank you” before taking a healthy swallow. “You at Mom and Dad’s?”
Larissa stands idly by, forced to look back at me as I keep us a respectable foot apart, doing my best not to crowd her where she stands, looking every bit a fucking siren custom-made for me, her posture relaxed.
The warmth of the wine coating my tongue and bold aftertaste indicative of her state as Zach speaks up.
“Yeah, I just hung your ugly Christmas ornament for you.”
Larissa’s lips simper at his admission as my past and present painfully collide, hammering Mom’s words home, allowing a better view of the life I’m living. “Hopefully I’ll be there to hang it next year.”
“So she’s the reason why you’re not home this Christmas?”
“One of them,” I give. “I know it’s frustrating, and I promise I’ll come clean when I’m capable, but believe me, this reason is, well, she’s a tinderbox—ruthless, cunning, prideful, book-smart, and strong as a fucking ox.
She’s put me on my ass more than once. She’s also loyal, protective, soulful, nurturing, and one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever laid eyes on. ”
“So you’re trying to win her back?”