I place my hand on his shoulder, knowing he doesn’t want me near him, and he shoves it off like I expect.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” he warns. For a second, I think the kid might actually have the balls to swing, but he seems to think better of it and settles down.
“Son, you must know I didn’t plan any of this. I love your mother,” I remind him. “But—”
“Men will be men, right?” he cuts in, quoting a conversation we had a few weeks earlier.
Feigning remorse, I nod. “I’m not perfect.”
“Truest shit you’ve ever said,” he scoffs.
“I didn’t intend to tell you all of this.” When I lower my head, I impress myself with how genuine this is coming across.
He can’t even look at me, and I’m okay with that. The boy’s resilient, bounces back from these sorts of things like they never happened. Just like his old man.
I peer up at him again, keeping my expression solemn. “I only came down here … to warn you,” I add, which I realize has piqued his interest when he meets my gaze. “That girl, she’s playing you. Probably has been since day one.”
Even in his silence, I see how I’ve broken him, see how I’ve started a fire and then doused it in gasoline. The rage I see growing inside him is exactly what I want to see, because it’s what it’ll take to keep them apart.
While I know the risk I’ve just taken, it was one-hundred percent necessary.
“She’s using you to hurt me,” I add. “She threatened to do it, but I didn’t believe she had it in her. I should’ve known better.”
This lie is the hardest to tell, because I’d die before I let someone manipulate me like that. In fact, I have people on the books strictly to prevent this very thing from ever happening. Sure, it isn’t cheap, but it’s proven more than once to be a worthwhile cost.
To clean up my messes.
Even to clean up West’s.
“What’s her plan?” West seethes, now filled with searing anger and pain.
“She seems to think that sleeping with you will punish me for not leaving your mother. If she didn’t know I’d rake her ass over the coals, she’d probably try to sell the story to the first news outlet who’d listen, but she’s no idiot.”
When West doesn’t have a snappy comeback, I can only guess he’s bought what I just sold.
Damn, I’m good.
“You never leave your tracks uncovered. Ever. So, why this time?” A cold look flashes in my direction and there’s one last hint of suspicion burning in my son’s gaze.
One last doubt I need to stamp out of his head.
I make a false attempt at touching his shoulder again, but pretend to change my mind at the last second. Then, I lower my gaze in ‘shame’.
“You’re not gonna want to hear this,” I begin, taking a deep breath, “but … it wasn’t just sex with her. It was … more than that.”
I pause, letting that sink in with him, humanizing myself in his eyes in a way I’ve never done before.
“I can admit that I fucked up,” I add. “I let the feelings I developed give me a false sense of trust. Eventually, I told her things about me that I shouldn’t have, told her things about our family that I shouldn’t have, but that’s how clever she is,” I warn him. “She knows how to get inside your head, which is why I’m willing to bet you’re having a hard time believing all this. But, as much as I wish it was all made up, as much as I wish I could turn back time and redo what I’ve done … I can’t,” I conclude. “The only thing I can do from here is make sure she doesn’t continue to use you, manipulate your feelings, just to get under my skin. Because, trust me, once that happens, it’s hard as hell to get that one out of your system.”
He’s quiet. Very quiet.
“Have you told her about this? That you planned to tell me everything?” he asks.
My brow tenses, wondering why he’s asking.
“No, West. My loyalty isn’t to her,” I assure him. “It’s to you, this family.”
Hearing that, his jaw ticks and he grits his teeth. “Fuck your loyalty,” he growls.
I nod, agreeing like some sympathetic fiend, desperate for his approval. “Just tell me what I can do to make this right, son. I’m willing to do anything.”
His gaze is cold and unfeeling when it lands on me. “The only thing I want from you, now or ever, is your word that you’ll keep your fucking mouth shut. Don’t tell her you came to me with this.”
Again, I nod, but can’t help but to ask one last thing. “Why? What’s your plan?”
A normal kid would be scarred from the things West has seen and heard, but he’s made of steel, unbreakable. Which is why I know hearing this has only given my boy a newfound sense of vigilance. Whatever he thought he felt for this girl, it should be dying a slow death inside him now.
West storms off without answering the question, but even seeing how this talk has wounded him, I regret nothing. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve just successfully avoided a catastrophic disaster. If sacrificing my son’s perception of me keeps the Golden name from getting dragged down into the mud, keeps everything I’ve worked so hard to conceal from blowing up in my face, then … so be it.
Others might argue that the price might not be worth the outcome, but I would have to disagree.
Some secrets are never meant to be unearthed.
Blue
Not a word while we waited to load.
Not a word since getting on the bus.
I mean, I didn’t expect to sit together or anything, but this feels … extreme.
It’s not even so much that he hasn’t
