29. Diesel
Chapter 29
Diesel
“That was an awesome movie, Ryan,” Rory tells him.
As for me I don’t remember much of the movie. I remember my son laughing and curling into Rory’s arms despite the armrest of the seat he was in. I remember her wrapping her arm around him and asking him questions about the movie. They were questions she probably already knew the answer to—or didn’t care about—but she asked because she knew Ryan would enjoy showing her how well he knew the characters. She made him feel important. Ryan has never had that in his life, not from a woman and it was plain to see that he was starved for it.
For me the night has been an exercise in self-torture. Watching Rory with my son, watching her interact with him. Getting her soft looks and touches myself, watching as my son received the same. It looked genuine. Fuck, it felt genuine. It felt good and I know that the same good I was feeling, my child was too. In fact, if I was going to go back in life and have the power to choose the one woman to be Ryan’s mother. It might have been her.
It would have been her.
I can admit that. I’m a grown ass man. Rory ticks off all of the fucking boxes I never knew I carried around when it came to women in my life.
Smart. Check.
Funny. Check.
Sassy as fuck. Double check.
Sweet. As fucking sugar… check.
Loving.
I watch her for a moment. Ryan’s body curled into her. His hand pressed tight against her side, her arm holding him and his tiny hand holding her, splayed across her stomach. His slice of pepperoni pizza half gone, but my boy is full because he had a shit load of popcorn at the movies while the three of us tried to discover who could throw it in the air and catch it with their mouths most often.
Ryan won, but then I don’t think Rory or I tried that hard. My son needed the sweet taste of victory and he got it.
Loving? Double-fucking-check.
We’re at the arcade and pizzeria in town and we’ve played until Ryan has probably spent enough money to feed a third world nation. It was good… better than good. That laughter that I realized this morning Ryan hadn’t been giving me? It was out in full force tonight. So much laughter and that cute giggle he gives that it too squeezed my heart and brought me pain. Ryan laughed so much that I fucking kid you not, my child was glowing from that shit. His face was alight with… happiness.
I hadn’t seen it in so long. Fuck, maybe even since Ryan began to realize he didn’t have a woman in his life. Babies need their mothers, there’s a special bond between them. I had heard that shit often, but I didn’t believe it. Ryan’s mother is a fucking she-bitch cow who’d rather have diamonds on her fingers and blow in her nose than hug her child. The few times she’s been in Ryan’s space, she’s proved that over and over.
The most painful thing about it was that she proved it to Ryan. He was young, sure, but my child is smart and he was faced with this reality almost immediately. He shouldn’t have had to and I fucking tried to protect him, but shit bleeds through and Vicki… she’s so fucking full of shit that you smell it coming for days. I’ve tried to make up for it. Sometimes I succeeded, often I failed.
I never expected to have a child, it wasn’t on my plans for life. The way I grew up… it marked me and I never wanted the responsibility of a child because I sure as fuck didn’t want to mess his life up.
I never wanted to mark him.
But, I have. I’ve marked him with my anger, my fear of losing him, of him getting hurt… and my choices. I’ve marked him and I fucking hate myself for it. Coming to Montana was a new start. A chance to try and mend those marks. A chance to give Ryan a normal life, without worrying Vicki was going to try something else.
At first, she wanted Ryan because it was a connection to me and she could use him for money. I’ve paid her so much dough just to get rid of the bitch that it’s staggering. Fury asked me once why I didn’t just fucking kill her and end it all back then.
I should have. I was weak. That’s another thing I would have changed if I could go back. I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to have my son look at me one day and see hate in his eyes, all because I killed his mother. Back then, I stupidly thought there was still time for her to change. That she’d magically look at Ryan, this beautiful little boy who made the world better, and want to clean her shit up to be a part of that—to nourish it. It never happened. With Vicki that truth is compounded in my head daily these days. Now I’d end her. I’d fucking strangle the life out of her with my bare hands. I’d do it without regret.
But, it turns out that as stupid as Vicki is, she’s also smart. Because she never comes at me alone, and never in a way I can get my hands around her fucking throat. One day it’s coming. I know it and I’m prepared. I just hope I can shield Ryan when it does.
“Noah?” Rory asks softly, like she’s afraid. “Are you okay?”
I look away from my son. Correction, I’m staring at his hand on Rory’s stomach and the way her fingers are lightly dancing over that hand. I’ve been staring at it this entire time, feeling this burn in my gut and… resisting the urge to snatch him and run.
How fucked up is that?
I force my gaze to lift to Rory’s face.
Beautiful. So much fucking beauty my balls ache and that squeeze on my heart comes back, but more intense. Her green eyes are glued to my face as if she’s trying to read the lay of the land, see what is in my head.
I could tell her that she doesn’t want to know. I don’t want to be in my head… I just don’t have the choice.
“I’m good,” I tell her. The words not truthful, but I can’t remember a time when I was good, so I’m at least at my norm.
“You’re quiet,” she says.
“Fighting old ghosts,” I tell her, giving her that small bit of honesty because she’s done nothing to prove she doesn’t deserve it. Still, the mistrust is there. I’m expecting her to show me that I was wrong to soften toward her. I’m fully expecting for her to prove she’s as bad as the others and yet, I’m still letting her near my son.
If that’s not fucked up, I couldn’t tell you what is.
Rory nods like she understands and maybe with her history she does. She doesn’t push me to expand and I’m grateful. Instead, her eyes leave mine and she looks at my son, who has somehow fallen asleep.
“I think he’s done for the night,” she says softly and I hate that Ryan misses this moment. I hate it because he should have this memory. This should be one burned in his brain, that he can recall when he needs it. But… he’s sleeping and he misses it as Rory bends down and kisses the top of his head. I know, because I’ve done it myself and I can tell that’s what she’s doing, she breathes my boy in.
She inhales his sweet smell, the smell of baby shampoo, innocence and love. She breathes deep and takes that inside and she smiles as it feeds her. It’s a small half smile and she’s looking down, part of her hair hiding her face, but I see it. I understand it and that fucking burning in my gut, the squeeze on my heart they swell and amplify to the point that if I were standing they’d cripple me.
“Yeah,” I murmur, my voice so fucking clogged with the things in my head that I can barely get the word out and it sounds raw. Raw because it was torn from my insides.
“You barely ate,” she says, her gaze coming back to find mine.
I search. I search hard for any sign that she’s other than what she appears. I search for those signs that I should have searched for in Violet, signs that I saw and ignored because how can a woman seek to hurt a child. I ignore my dick, my wants, and I search Rory’s face.
I find nothing and yet that burn is still there.
“Too much popcorn,” I tell her with a shrug and get rewarded with those full lips of hers smiling at me.
“Yeah, but it was good.”
“Even with the chocolate Raisinets on them?” I ask and she scrunches up her nose looking so cute that I want to kiss her.
I don’t.
“I still say that’s just wrong, but whatever,” she laughs quietly.
“Are you doing okay?” I ask, because I know she’s not. She’s hid it well, but she’s been looking over her shoulder all night. She’s worried about her ex and her brother. She’s been panicked ever since visiting the judge. The restraining and protection orders they issued for her did nothing to allay her fears.
Is that her game? Is she using me for protection?
Of all the possibilities this one I could deal with the most. Fuck, I wouldn’t even mind it.
How fucked up is that?
The burn in my gut clenches to the point it feels like a white-hot knife is slicing into me.
“I still think Mexico is a good option,” she says and she’s not joking.
“If they’re stupid enough to come here and bother you, we’ll deal with them,” I vow and I’m fucked up, but I know that I’m speaking the truth. I’ll protect Rory. I’m finding the hard truth is that I don’t have to trust her to care about her.
“It could be dangerous, Noah. I don’t want to bring that to your door. You have Ryan to think about.”
“It could be a moot point. Let’s see if they do anything first,” I tell her.
I have a feeling they will. No man follows a woman to Montana after she left him and clearly hates him… unless he’s fucked in the head.
He’s a different kind of fucked up than me, but he is just the same.
Seems Rory has a knack for attracting a certain kind. Good thing for her that I don’t want to hurt her.
At least not yet—not unless she betrays me and my child.
Son of a bitch, I’m tired of being me…