Cyrus
Chapter fourteen
Tossing Lines & Throwing Hands
Jonah’s spinner arches over us, slicing through the air with practiced ease, silver flashing in the sun before it drops into the lake with a soft plop.
I haven’t had time to… fish. To relax. Not that fishing with the guy who knocked my girlfriend up is relaxing.
Hell, if anything, I’m more on edge than I’ve been in weeks.
Tension and nightmares have become my constant companions lately. My muscles coil, tight as wire. I tilt my head, stretching my neck in a futile attempt to ease the tension in my shoulders—but it does nothing. Intrusive thoughts crash into me, threatening to pull me under.
Sulfur suffocates me on a phantom wind.
Steel crunches.
A baby wails.
My hands convulse around the pole. The line trembles with the force of it.
“Glad you accepted the invite. We haven’t done this since we were kids, man.” Jonah’s voice pulls me back from the memories.
“No problem,” I say, forcing myself to sound normal. “It’s been a while since I went fishing without Liam chasing me around.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, I bet you get little to no fishing done with a kid in tow.”
“Try none. When he tries to cast, I end up extracting hooks from my arms.” We both wince. We’ve both been hooked before. It’s an unfortunate rite of passage for anyone who fishes long enough.
“Sounds like fun,” he says dryly.
“Perks of being back home,” I reply.
“Lani must be enjoying it.”
“She is.” I nod. “Mom’s obsessed with introducing Liam to everyone. So I get a reprieve from dad duties almost weekly. It’s taking time, but…I think we’re adjusting.”
A faint tug pulls at the line. My grip tightens. I give it a sharp jerk—hook set. I reel in a tiny bass.
“Nice,” Jonah says.
I unhook the little guy and gently slip him back into the water.
“Today he’s five inches,” I say, watching it dip under the water. “Tomorrow at the station, I’ll make him thirteen.” Jonah snorts. “Size matters, man.” We share a laugh. The moment stretches, easy and familiar, before reality claws back in. Almost normal. Almost.
Fallon and Jonah’s ‘platonic’ relationship isn’t my business. That’s what I keep telling myself. But Fallon’s face flashes through my mind anyway—those eyes, that expression of betrayal—and the truth is whether I want it or not. Fallon is my business.
Mom mentioned Jonah almost in passing—said there’d been an accident and he’d come home. At the time, I didn’t ask if he was okay. Didn’t care enough to.
Now, sitting here with him, I notice there are no visible scars. I wonder what happened anyway.
I should’ve had social media—some way to keep up while I was gone. But the idea of strangers picking apart my life online makes my grip tighten around the rod instead.
No thanks.
D.C. taught me how vicious people can be with a keyboard. I don’t need the human population to be twisting my words, reimagining who I am to fit their narrative. The only people who get to have an opinion about me are the ones who actually know me.
How did Jonah walk away from Fallon, knowing she was having his kid?
The friend I grew up with wouldn’t. Even in our wildest days, he wouldn’t ditch his responsibilities.
So… if Jonah isn’t the father, then who is?
The answer settles heavily in my gut before I’m ready to face it.
Another bass nabs the bait. I reel it in slowly, my thoughts spiraling faster than the line.
“Nice catch,” Jonah says. “Want another beer?”
He digs through the small cooler between us, discarding melted ice before tossing me a can. I catch it easily, then take a moment to study him while his focus is elsewhere.
Jonah Addams doesn’t look like a mountain man. He looks like a California surfer through and through. Sun-bleached curls gone wild on top, sides clipped close with a crosshair design shaved in. Bright, mischievous eyes. People, especially the women, are drawn to him.
He’s always been that way—magnetic. Effortlessly likable. The kind of guy people trust quickly.
A womanizer? Yes.
But a man who’d run out on his child?
I don’t buy it.
When Liam’s mother, Sarah, decided to give our son up for adoption, it nearly destroyed me. I sold everything I owned, worked two jobs, and kept perfect attendance just to prove I was stable enough to raise a child on my own.
My senior year of college became nothing like I’d imagined—but adapting was the only option I had left. She didn’t hold Liam when he was born. Didn’t look at him. Just turned her head, the steady beeping of the hospital monitor filling the silence, and told me, cold as stone, to get rid of him.
It’s the only time I’ve ever truly hated a woman.
How could Jonah walk away from Fallon and Billy?
Billy. Fallon naming her daughter, their daughter, after my father is a kick to the gut—a joke I don’t understand, one my mother somehow missed entirely. The closeness between those two women still doesn’t make sense to me.
Billy isn’t Jonah’s. The thought keeps circling, relentless. I drag a hand over my face, wipe away sweat, and cast my line.
“Why are you giving me the evil eye?”
Jonah’s voice pulls me back. He hands me a fresh beer before taking a drink of his own, then reaches for his pole. The small boat sways beneath us. I hesitate. Interrogating him feels invasive. But silence isn’t an option either—not when Fallon is this close, not when her name causes me to unravel.
The way she walked up to Mom’s house the other night in that red dress—innocent, sharp, untouchable. I shouldn’t want her. But I do.
And it only gets worse the more she’s tied to my mother’s life. By proxy, mine. Some questions don’t fade—they demand answers, even if the answers strip whatever peace I have left down to nothing. Our friendship ended the moment he crossed a line with her. Or at least, that’s what I told myself.
So what am I doing here? Looking for closure? A confession? Proof I was right? Whatever it is, I need it from him. Here we fucking go.
“Are you Billy’s father?”