Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
CORD
The gear bay was quiet, save for the clink of tools against the tray as I straightened the same damn wrench for the third time.
Everything was already in order—tight, clean, squared away.
I wasn’t even supposed to be here, but I needed something to do with my hands.
Anything to keep my brain from looping the same ten seconds again and again, as it had been for the past two days.
Mommy?
Her voice. Her kid. Her face.
I’d known the moment it hit me. The way the air dropped out of my lungs. The way everything I thought I wanted suddenly felt like a live wire in my hands.
The bay door creaked open behind me, but I didn’t turn. I knew who it was by the silence that followed. Rivera didn’t fill space—he just… was. Quiet like a priest and twice as steady. Paladin in action.
He moved to the opposite bench and picked up one of the helmets, wiping it down in smooth, patient strokes. Not watching me, not pushing. Just being there. Waiting .
I shifted another wrench. My fists were clenched without me realizing it.
“Complicated,” I muttered.
Rivera didn’t blink. “Yeah?” As if we’d already been in the middle of a conversation.
That was it. No judgment, no prompting. Just space.
And it was worse somehow. Because it meant I didn’t have to say it.
But I might anyway because the whole thing was fucking eating me up inside.
Rivera set the helmet down with that same measured calm, then turned slightly to look at me. “You gonna tell me what’s going on, or do I have to guess?”
I grunted. “It’s nothing.” That was proper dude protocol. Never admit to emotional weakness. And, well, I wanted it to be nothing. But no amount of wishing and hoping was going to make it so.
Rivera just waited. Still and steady, like always. Didn’t press. Didn’t need to.
I exhaled, short and sharp. “She’s a single mom.”
A beat of silence passed.
“And?” he asked, quiet, even.
“And I don’t do single moms.” I shoved a wrench a little too hard into its slot. “I’ve got a rule.” A rule I would never have broken had I known. But I hadn’t known. She hadn’t volunteered, and it hadn’t even occurred to me to ask. Not at her age.
Her kid was in first grade. Six. So she’d have had him young.
Not that I judged her for that. But I couldn’t help wondering about the circumstances.
Had it been on purpose? Or had some asshat taken advantage of her?
Had she always been on her own, or had the kid’s father been in the picture at some point?
Hell, was he now? Lucy clearly wasn’t with anyone.
She wasn’t the type to stray. But exes made things extra complicated .
Rivera didn’t flinch. He just looked at me with that maddening, monk-still expression of his. Quiet. Unshakable. Never rushed. Like he already knew the answer and was just giving me time to say it out loud.
When I said nothing, he finally prompted, “Yeah? Why’s that?”
I’d lost the thread of the conversation while my brain spun with questions. What was he asking? Oh, why the rule of no single moms?
I busied my hands with a coil of hose that didn’t need fixing. Shrugged. “Too easy to screw up.”
He didn’t fill the silence. Didn’t challenge or comfort. Just waited.
That was worse.
My shoulders locked up. I could feel the pressure building under my skin, a slow throb behind my ribs.
Then it came out, sharp and jagged, before I could stop it. “Because I’d be a shit dad, okay?”
The words rang in the space between us, harder than I meant. Louder than I wanted. I didn’t look up. Just stood there, fists clenched around the hose, waiting for the echo to settle, and hating how much truth was sitting in my throat.
I didn’t look at Rivera. Just kept my eyes on the hose I’d been pretending to re-wrap, even though I’d already done it twice. My fingers clenched around it until it creaked.
“My old man bounced before I could walk.” The words came out flat, like a fact I’d recited too many times.
I shifted my weight, tried to shake it off, but it stuck. Heavy. Ugly. “Mom… wasn’t exactly maternal.” I gave a dry, humorless laugh. “Unless you count chasing losers and forgetting school pickup.”
I let the coil drop to the floor. Rubber slapped concrete.
“I spent my whole damn childhood learning exactly how easy it is to fuck up a kid without even trying.” My voice was too low, like maybe if I kept it down, it wouldn’t feel so much like a confession.
I finally looked up, throat tight. “I’m not gambling with somebody else’s little human. I’m not built for that.”
Shame settled into my skin like smoke—thick and cloying, and not going anywhere.
Rivera didn’t flinch. Didn’t try to pat my shoulder or spill out some canned wisdom like a motivational poster with a badge. He just leaned against the opposite bench, arms crossed over his chest.
“You think shitty parents only make shitty parents?”
I snorted. “I think it’s in the wiring. You can’t break something that doesn’t come with a spare.”
He nodded once, like he’d expected that answer. “I grew up in the system. Couple decent homes. Couple bad ones. Learned real early the kind of man I didn’t want to be.”
He didn’t say it to argue. He said it like he was just placing a fact on the table and waiting to see if I’d pick it up. Then, after a pause, he added, “You don’t have to be your past. You just have to show up.”
And hell if that didn’t land harder than anything else he could’ve said.
I swallowed hard and rubbed a hand over the back of my neck, the motion tight and automatic, like I was trying to work something loose that had been stuck for years.
My voice came out rough. “She looked at me like I’d slapped her.
When her kid called her mommy, and I just—” I broke off, jaw clenched so tight it ached.
“I didn’t say anything. I just… stood there. ”
The image of her face in that moment—tight, controlled, like she’d been bracing for the blow the whole time—it wouldn’t leave me. She’d turned away like she’d already accepted the outcome, and I hadn’t done a damn thing to stop it .
I sank down onto the bench beside the turnout gear, elbows on my knees. “We already slept together,” I said quietly. “Rule’s already broken. Guess the only thing left is how I handle it now.”
And I had no idea what the hell that meant. But it felt like the first honest question I’d asked myself in a long time.
Rivera nodded once, the kind of gesture that meant he wasn’t going to push, but he was still waiting for me to step up. “So what’re you gonna do?”
I let the question settle, rolling it around in my head like a loose bolt that wouldn’t tighten.
Then I stood, stretching out my shoulders like I could shake the tension off with movement.
“I’m gonna talk to her,” I said finally.
“Apologize. I don’t know what else I can offer, but she deserves that much. ”
Rivera gave me a slow, satisfied look. “Good start. Maybe don’t lead with the whole ‘wiring’ speech.”
A breath of laughter escaped me—gritty, dry, but real. “Yeah,” I muttered, managing the barest ghost of a grin. “Noted.”
It wasn’t a plan. Not really. But it was a step. And for the first time since I saw Lucy’s face fall, it felt like forward was still an option.