Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(113)

Couldn’t blame her.

That was all on me.

“Then what are you doing here?” she finally demanded, voice a rasp of accusation and tears.

I cleared my throat. “I’m here because five years ago I made the biggest mistake of my life. Five years ago I signed away my son.”

Desperation had me taking another step forward. “And I know I don’t have the right to be here, Kenzie. That all those mistakes I made cost me that right. But I need to know he’s okay. Need to know that you’re both okay.”

Nerves pricked my flesh. I raked a hand through my hair, doing my best to contain it. To, for once, stand up and really be a man. I met the fear in her gaze. “I need to see him, Kenz. If you’ll let me, I need to see my son.”

The last was a breath, and with the claim she flinched like I’d struck her.

“Why now?” she asked, mouth trembling. “Why now, after all this time?”

Glancing to the ground off to the side, I rubbed a hand over my face to clear the tension that stretched taut between us.

Anger.

Hostility.

And old, old pain I wasn’t sure would ever go away.

“Because someone showed me recently what it’s like to be brave.”

Brave.

Brown eyes moved over me. Like maybe she was just then realizing how different I looked since the last time she saw me, the ink now covering almost every exposed inch of skin.

The torment I’d written there.

Hers.

Mine.

She winced when she locked on Brendon’s name that was woven through his song.

She finally tore her attention up to my eyes that probably told more than the ink ever could.

Because I was sorry.

So f*cking sorry.

But I didn’t know if that made a damned difference in the grand scheme of things.

If it was worth the upheaval of their lives. Because no question, the house behind her was a home. A place she lived with our son and the guy she’d married two years ago, something I’d discovered when I got on-line to track her down.

They were a family and I wasn’t sure how I was ever gonna fit because I sure as hell wasn’t there to break it up.

Wasn’t lying when I told her I didn’t come to bring her trouble. But that rarely mattered much since trouble seemed to be tacked to my name.

She chewed at her bottom lip, the way she always used to do when she didn’t know what to do with herself. “I always knew you would come.”

Uneasily, I shifted on my feet and shoved my hands a little deeper in my pockets. “Yeah? Because I never thought I would.”

I watched the heavy bob of her throat. “Because you didn’t want to?”

I gave her a jerk of my head. “No, Kenzie. Because it was the only thing in the world I wanted to do.”

She nodded like she got it, looked me square. “Okay.”

Okay.

I puffed out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

Okay.

She lifted her chin toward the neighborhood park where I’d been waiting. “I’ll bring him out…wait for us at the park.”

She turned around, then paused. Wavered. Warily, she looked at me from over her shoulder. “Lyrik…he doesn’t…”

She trailed off like she couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud.

Not needing clarification, my head rocked with acceptance.

Of course he didn’t.

Didn’t expect him to know who I was.

I lifted my shoulders in a hapless shrug. “Introduce me however you need to, Kenz. Whatever makes sense. I don’t care. I just want to see him.”

A mournful smile lifted just the corner of her mouth, and she swiped at the moisture clouding her eyes. “I’ll be out in a minute. Brad needs to know.”

Something like jealousy grabbed me.

Yeah.

I’d seen Brad returning with Brendon every day, too, even though I’d never gotten a real look at my son. Just the vague awareness he was in the backseat of the truck that pulled into the garage an hour earlier than Kenzie got home.

I wandered back to the park, took a seat on the bench with my elbows propped on my knees. Same way as I’d done the last three days. Though this time…this time my insides shook and my heart thundered. Throbbed with regret same as it raced with hope.

With the hope of something different.

The hope of something good.

That something good came when the door opened about ten minutes later. Over the cars in the garage, I could only see the top of Kenzie’s head and the guy emerging behind her. They edged down the space between the car and the garage wall before they stepped into the waning light as the day got sucked away.

Same as the air in my lungs.

My breath and my heart and my spirit caught.

Everything timeless yet speeding ahead.

A small hand was clutched tight in Kenzie’s.

Brendon.

My entire being pulsed.

Emotion after emotion.

Pain.

Loss.

Regret.

Love. Love. Love.

They stood frozen across the space, because maybe time needed to catch up to them too. His free arm was tucked full of toys, the kid wearing a button-up collared shirt and jeans cuffed at the ankles, looking like a little badass with the checkered Vans on his feet.