Boarlander Beast Boar (Boarlander Bears #4)(41)

Goddamn, Mason hated Robbie. Clenching his hands, Mason stood as the * made his way in a straight line toward 1010, forcing Beck to jog after his truck.

Robbie skidded to a stop right in the newly sodded yard and shoved the door open with a creeeaak. He barreled toward Mason, but halted when Mason stood to his full height and gave him a don’t-you-f*ckin’-dare glare.

“I just want to see my kid’s new dad in the light. It’s your fault, right?”

Behind Robbie, Beck was pulling a little golden-haired boy from the front seat and hugging him tight against her chest.

“Man, I don’t want this. I don’t want you cutting out on your kid’s life,” Mason said low.

“Yeah, well I did some thinkin’. And Beck used to be a pushover. She was. She let me have girlfriends for years before she asked for that divorce. If I said ‘jump,’ she said ‘how high,’ but now suddenly she can’t get on board with doing something that will give her son a good life?”

“By stripping the animal out of him?” Mason gritted out, about to lose his shit on this motherf*cker’s face. “There isn’t anything wrong with him. Nothing. You, on the other hand…you’re all kinds of messed up for even considering torture as an option.”

Robbie huffed a humorless breath, his dark eyes sparking with fury. After running his hands through his highlighted, stupid-looking hair, he looked like a pissed-off porcupine. Mason could squash him with a look if he wanted.

“I want to see the shit-hole you’ll be raising my son in.”

“What?” Mason asked as the idiot shoved past him and up the stairs. “We haven’t even discussed that stuff, and this isn’t my trailer.”

Robbie stomped across the new porch in heavy soled work boots, but yelped when his leg went straight through a floorboard. He let off a string of muttered curses. The dangling 0 of the house number that had been holding on by a single rusty nail for so long suddenly loosed and fell onto Robbie’s head with a resonating cong. An accidental laugh huffed from Mason’s chest. 1010 was fighting back.

“What the f*ck?” Robbie shouted, struggling to free his lanky leg from the splintered jaws of the porch where he’d sunk hip-deep.

“Ten-ten apparently doesn’t like being called a shit-hole. You just got your ass kicked by a thirty-five-year-old trailer, mister. Might want to leave now before it eats you whole.”

Robbie struggled out of the broken porch like a beached trout, then stood in a huff and rubbed his head. “It’s your fault Beck is being such a pain in the ass about all this.”

“Okay.” Mason bit his tongue against the verbal lashing he wanted to give this entitled little shit because that wouldn’t help Beck or Ryder.

“I don’t like him,” Robbie yelled, jamming his finger at Mason.

Beck approached the porch, Ryder clinging to her tightly, and tears had already rimmed her eyes. “You don’t have to like him. Who I pick has nothing to do with you, just like I couldn’t say anything about who you picked.”

“Well…” Robbie hooked his hands on his hips. “I think it’s messed up that you came here to work, and instead you moved on inappropriately fast from what we had.”

Mason pursed his lips and convinced himself not to whack this moron upside the head. Robbie had started banging Shelly way before he and Beck were even separated, so the fact that he thought he had any right to judge her was downright laughable.

Beck sighed and looked exhausted. “Can we talk about this in private, away from Ryder?”

“Nah, our little freak should hear what a whore his mom—gulp.”

Mason tightened his hand around Robbie’s throat and narrowed his eyes at the little cretin. “I could pop your face off your body with little effort, and you calling Beck a whore in front of her kid is making that prospect mighty tempting. Best go carry this conversation on in private, and mind the names you call her, yeah?”

Robbie made choking sounds and scratched at Mason’s fingers, trying to loosen his grip. “Okay,” he rasped out.

Mason gave him an empty smile and dropped Robbie back to earth.

Beck stood there wide-eyed, legs splayed, holding Ryder’s face against her neck. Slowly, she lowered her son to the ground and knelt in front of him. “Ryder, this is Mason. He’s our friend. Would you mind hanging out with him for a few minutes while I talk to Daddy?”

The little boy’s lip was pouted out, and his eyes, the same seafoam green of his mother’s, were filling with tears. In a broken whisper, the boy said, “That’s not my dad. He said don’t call him that no more.”

Fuckin’ Robbie.

Beck looked gutted and kissed each of her son’s palms, then patted him on the bottom and watched as he climbed the stairs slowly. When he got to Mason, Ryder arched his neck way back. He looked scared. Mason had that effect on people.

Beck’s gaze lingered on her son as she followed Robbie to the tree line. Geez, Mason wished he could be there, but Beck was strong and had been taking what Robbie dished out for a long time. She could handle herself, and besides…she’d asked him to stay with her son.

Clearing his throat, Mason squatted down to eye-level and said, “What your dad called you…”

“F-freak,” Ryder whispered.