“No, no, it’s nothing right now. And if it becomes something, I’m sure I can reach him. Or…”
She didn’t finish her sentence, but I knew what she was going to say. Or you can. She just knew by now I was sick of him.
But truth be told, by now, I was ready to ask Liam again to hang out and talk. I wasn’t going to lose my shit. The worst of the revelations had been dealt—what was he going to do, reveal he had fourteen other kids? They weren’t my kids. If Emily needed help, ironically, I was the fastest connection to her.
“Well, I support you getting help. Better safe than sorry.”
“Cool. I’ve gotta get back to work, but I’m sorry to hear about Liam.”
“Don’t be,” I said, a smile forming on my face. “If anything, in all honesty, you’re making me look at things a little bit differently right now. That can’t be overstated.”
“Good. Let me know when you have more information about everything.”
“Only if you do the same about yours.”
“I will.”
We hung up right after. It was strange to have a call where I learned my best friend feared her asshole ex had made a comeback…and yet feel better than when I’d started the call. Somehow, someway, the girl that wanted to know if I’d banged Liam was able to convince me that I just needed to give everything a second chance.
And she had a point. I didn’t need love. I had Charlotte and Bucky. But Charlotte needed to know her father as much as possible.
And maybe, just maybe, I’d eventually realize that I should give love a second chance.
Or, you know, at least not cussing my baby’s father out.
Chapter 10: Liam
I didn’t move from my stool at the brewery for hours.
For fucking hours.
I never fucking did that. I didn’t like staying in one place. It wasn’t good for the soul, and more importantly, it wasn’t good tactically.
But what…what the fuck was I supposed to move for after I acted like that?
I looked up at the bartender a couple of times, but the older woman had the good sense—or perhaps just common self-preservation—not to engage me for the first several hours. But when the night finally started to creep over the chilly day, when the bar was slowly starting to get more patrons—all sitting at a corner far away from me—I think the poor lady took some sympathy on me.
“You can’t just sit there all day, you know,” she said. “A handsome fella like you? You should be out looking for the tourists and showing them a good time.”
I gave a good natured chuckle.
“That would risk me getting close to them,” I said, “and when people do that, they tend to get hurt.”
“Oh, honey, with all respect, we all have our moments where we feel like teenagers in a sappy movie.”
I bit my lip. I could have said so much right there to prove her wrong.
Like how about how both of my parents died before I was six years old? That left me with abandonment issues and forced me to grow up so fucking fast. Was it any wonder that I spent my professional life literally fighting other assholes? It was the only way I knew how to survive in the world—and luckily for me, it just so happened to pay well. Just, you know, at the cost of my sanity and wellbeing.
Or, perhaps, like how I’d once been married, and my wife had been killed in a car accident? If I thought my abandonment issues were bad from my childhood, they practically became stone-cold etched into my soul at that moment. My wife had been beautiful, the one person who had taken me out of the darkness of my life and lifted me toward something hopeful. And then, she died, and with it, any hope I had of living a normal life.
So was it any wonder that when people got near me, they tended to get hurt? Actually, no, that was an understatement. I’d done the socially polite thing by not scaring the shit out of the bartender with some horror story about my past.
“Yeah, well, some people wanted me to bring my sappy movie to them,” I said, “but they don’t know that I’m doing them a favor by staying the fuck away.”
How in the fuck could I be a father to Charlotte when I didn’t have a father I could remember with any decency? How could I be a husband when my job took me on the road so much and I would always fear for her life?
No, this was the best way for me to live my life. Stay the fuck away from intimacy, let me be a man of my own volition, and let me help those in need and those who could pay me whenever possible. Nothing else fucking mattered, especially since I was damn good at my job. DOM worked rather well since it aligned so well with what I needed to do.
But…
Fuck if I wasn’t lonely sometimes.
But fuck if I didn’t give a shit. I knew what I’d signed up for. Fleeting moments of being weak were not the kind of thing I needed to pay any attention to.
“I don’t think ‘some people’ might agree with that,” the bartender said gently. “Who are you referring to?”
“My kid and her mother.”
I said those far too quickly. The alcohol I was drinking was affecting me. I couldn’t let myself get compromised like this…but then again, I couldn’t have let myself have a child and bring something like her to the world. Whoops.
“Those sound like good things, dear.”
I grimaced. I was feeling self-conscious after the revelation. But she had a point.
I could forget about Kelly, sure. But about Charlotte? I felt…angry. Not at
