Crashed (Driven, #3)(64)

Fuck! I don’t want to talk about this shit. I don’t want to talk about babies and gold digging women and little boys I miss and a woman I can’t stop thinking about. “Fuck, I don’t know.”

“You’re gonna have to give me more than that, Colton.”

“Like what? That I f*cked up? Is that what you want to hear?” I goad him to react. And it feels good to push someone for a change. Everyone else has been walking around me, treating me with kid gloves this past week afraid of my temper snapping, so it feels good even if I’m going to feel like f*cking shit later for doing it to my dad. “You want me to tell you I f*cked Tawny and now I’m getting what I deserve because I dumped her like a hot f*cking coal and now she’s coming after me saying she’s pregnant? That I don’t want a kid—will not have a kid—with her or anyone else? Ever. Because I refuse to let someone use a child as a pawn to get what they want from me. Because how the f*ck can someone like me be a father to a kid when I’m just as f*cked up now as I was when you found me?”

I shove up off of the couch and start pacing the room. I’m annoyed with him that he hasn’t taken the bait—hasn’t pushed back and given me the fight I’m itching for—and is just sitting there with that look of complete acceptance and understanding. Pacification. I want him to tell me he hates me, that he’s disappointed in me, that I deserve all that I’m getting right now because that is so much f*cking easier for me to hold on to and believe than the opposite.

“And what does Rylee think of all of this?”

I stop and turn to look at him. What? I didn’t expect that to come out of his mouth. “What do you mean?”

“I asked, what does Rylee think about all of this?” He leans forward, elbows on his knees, eyes questioning me beneath arched brows.

“Fuck if I know.” I grunt and my dad shakes his head. God, I hate having to explain myself. But it’s my dad. My end game superhero, how can I not? “She was here when Tawny dropped the bomb. We got in a fight because I was taking everything out on her, being an inconsiderate ass. Bitching about a baby I don’t want when she can’t have one. I was in stellar form,” I tell him with a roll of my eyes. “We agreed to a few days apart to get our heads straight again. Get my shit together.”

“And you haven’t talked to her since?”

“What is this, Dad? Twenty f*cking questions? Does it look like I have my shit figured out yet?” I snort out a derisive laugh. One step forward and then f*cking twenty steps backwards. “Is Tawny still f*cking pregnant? Have the test results come back yet? Yes, and a big f*cking no … So no, I haven’t called her back yet. Chalk it up to just another thing for you to hold against me.”

He just stares at me. “Is that what I’m doing? Holding your shit against you? Because it looks like you’re doing a damn fine job of it yourself, son. So let me ask you the question you should be asking yourself: Why haven’t you pulled your head out of your ass and called her?”

I blow out a loud breath. Fuckin’ A. “I don’t want to go there right now, Dad.” Just go away. Let me down the next bottle of Jack while the clock ticks for the doctors to take their sweet ass time to decide if I’ve just f*cked up the life of an unborn child. Because if the kid’s mine, f*ck, he’s already starting off with a tainted soul and that—that’s something I can’t have on my conscience.”

“Well I do want to go there, so pull up a chair to your own pity party, Colton, because I’m not leaving until we finish talking. Understood?”

My mouth falls open, and I’m transported back to fifteen years ago and my one night in custody for drag racing. To that moment in time when he picked me up, raked me over the proverbial motherf*cking coals, and told me how it was going to be from there on out. Fuck me. I’ve got chest hair and houses and shit now, but he can still make me feel like a teenager.

Anger flashes through me. I don’t need a f*cking shrink right now, I need a negative f*cking blood test. And Rylee wrapped around me with a soft sigh falling from her lips as I sink into her. The ultimate pleasure to bury all of this bullshit pain.

“So,” he says, pulling me back to him instead of thoughts of her. “You’re seriously going to let her go without a fight? Let her walk out of your life because of Tawny?”

“She’s not walking away!” I shout at him, upset that he would even think she would. Would she?

He just quirks an eyebrow. “Exactly.” My eyes snap up to meet his. “So quit treating her like she did. She’s not your mother.”

I want to scream at him that I f*cking know she’s not. To not even put her in the same sentence as my mother, but instead I play with the seam on the couch as I search for the answer I think he wants to hear. That I’m trying to convince myself is the truth. “She doesn’t deserve this … the shit that comes with me. My past … now my possible f*cking future.”

He makes a hum in his throat, and I hate it because I can’t figure out what it means. “Isn’t that up to her to decide, Colton? I mean you’re making decisions for her … shouldn’t she get a say?”

Shut up, I want to tell him. Don’t remind me what the f*ck she deserves because I already know. I already f*cking know! And I know because I can’t give it to her. I thought I could … thought I might be able to and now with this, I know I can’t. It’s reinforced all of the things she said … all of the things I’ll never be able to cleanse from my f*cking soul.