Capturing Peace (13 page)

“I’m sorry for not wanting to spend the night, Reagan. I’m sorry I don’t want to take Parker to school tomorrow. Sometimes I need a night and a morning to myself. I’m not your husband, he’s not my fucking child. It is not my job to take care of you!”

I stumbled back a couple steps and shook my head back and forth. “What?” Hearing a sound off to my right, I turned and saw Parker standing in the hall. “Room,” I choked out, and watched until he disappeared.

“I need space. I need to step back so I can just think.” His tone had dropped the angry edge, and was now replaced with a heavy exhaustion. “Our entire relationship has moved so fast, and I just—I don’t know. But I need time.”

My heart dropped, and I couldn’t move—couldn’t respond. This wasn’t happening. My lips parted, but only a short, agonized cry left me. As if someone had dropped a weight on my chest.

“I’m sorry, Reagan,” he said quickly as he turned and walked out the door.

I stood there for countless minutes staring at the door as I tried to compose myself. I wouldn’t cry. I refused to cry. I’d been protecting us for years from men, and this was why. Because of this possibility. Because Parker had fallen in love with him just as much as I had, like I’d known would happen. Because he ran, just like I’d known he would.

Locking my jaw when it began quivering, I curled my hands into fists. I would. Not. Cry.

He was no better than Austin. If he didn’t want us, then it was his loss. We didn’t need him, we were fine alone.

Alone
after experiencing life with Coen seemed impossible, and that one word had me falling to the floor as a strained sob burst from my chest.

Reaching into my back pocket, I pulled out my phone and tapped on the screen a few times before putting it to my ear. My body shook relentlessly as I tried to hold back the sobs, and they just pushed through harder.

“Hey, Ray.”

“Kee-Keegan,” I choked out.

“What’s wrong?” he shouted.

“I need y-you . . . here. I need you here.”

I heard shuffling and keys. “Are you at your apartment? I’m coming, what happened?”

Strained cries were all that left me for long moments. “Yes, just please.”

“I’m coming.”

Putting the phone on the ground, I wrapped my arms around my waist, as if it could somehow hold me together. It didn’t. It felt like I was breaking, and I didn’t know how to even begin to pick up all those pieces of me—of us.

“Mom?”

I looked quickly to the right into Parker’s wide eyes, and tried so hard to stop the tears. But seeing him only made it worse. My heartache for my son was only just beginning, and it was worse than anything I had begun to feel for myself.

“Did Coen go back to his house?”

When I couldn’t speak, I just nodded, and Parker seemed to accept that and sat on the floor next to me.

“He’ll come back,” he said softly.

If I could have stopped the crying to take care of my son right then, I still wouldn’t have been able to respond to that. Because even if Coen tried to come back, I wasn’t sure I would let him.

Coen—
November 1, 2010

M
Y PHONE RANG
for the fifth time in a row, and as I reached down to shut it off, I caught sight of Saco’s name, and answered.

“Hel—”

“You just left them? What the fuck is wrong with you?” he yelled, cutting me off.

“Christ, did Hudson call you?”

“Yeah, he did. And, Steele, he’s fucking pissed and coming after you.”

I groaned and tightened my grip on the steering wheel. I’d been driving around for hours. Not knowing or caring where I was going . . . just going in circles. “I wouldn’t expect anything else from him.”

“I don’t understand, we just talked like, six hours ago. You told me you wanted to adopt Parker. Fuck, Steele, you told me you wanted to marry her!”

“I know, I—”

“How can something like that change so drastically in just
hours
?”

“I freaked, okay? I was thinking about all of it, and I—it just scared the shit out of me. You were right, I went from not wanting anything steady to wanting to get married and adopt a six-year-old in less than three months. Who does that? I just. Fucking. Freaked.”

“But I wasn’t trying to get you to leave them! I was trying to get you to not rush into a marriage! You could have called me and talked to me about it before just up and leaving her with no warning.”

I kept talking like he hadn’t spoken. “I started doubting everything. Doubting my ability to be his dad, doubting my wanting to even be a dad. Doubting if Reagan actually loves me, or if she just loves me
for
her son.”

“Are you fucking blind? I’ve never even seen the two of you together except in pictures, and I know that’s not true. Hudson told me she never let
anyone
in before you. Over six years of avoiding people, and you’re the one who breaks through that . . . and all of a sudden you think she doesn’t love you?”

“Shit, no. I don’t know! I told you, it just all came at me at once and I freaked. Don’t fucking judge me. Your cunt of a wife refused to let you see her or your kid, and you jumped through hoops to be able to see him. Dropped your career, bought a house, did everything she demanded of you . . . and at the time, you couldn’t have even been positive he was your damn kid!”

“Don’t fucking spin this around onto me. I’m not the one who just ditched Reagan and Parker! With my situation, I manned up and took responsibility. You’re starting to see all the responsibility that comes with being with them, and you
left
.”

“I’m not putting it on you, I’m trying to tell you. You handled it your way, even though we all thought you were fucking insane. Now I’m handling this my way. Just because we chose to handle situations differently doesn’t mean you can chew me out for this shit.”

He huffed and started laughing, but his tone wasn’t amused. “You can’t begin to compare what I did and what you just did. I knocked my girlfriend up. I wasn’t about to let her go through that alone, no matter what was going on between us. You
willingly
went into a relationship with Reagan knowing she had a son and trust issues. Then when it started getting serious and you had a moment of panic, you left. Totally. Different.”

Of course they were different. I just needed something . . . anything to try and justify what I’d just done.

“What happened to ‘I will never quit,’ huh?”

My brow furrowed when I realized what he was saying. It was from part of the Soldier’s Creed.

“So you’re saying,” I began, my voice dark, “that no matter what relationship I got into, if I broke up with the girl, you’d use that shit against me? Question me as a man and soldier? Fuck. You. Saco.”

“No, and you know I’m not. From what you and Hudson have said, and what I’ve seen . . . I know this isn’t just a relationship for you. This is your future, and you’re being a bitch because you had a moment where you let your fears and insecurities get to you. Do you think I don’t have days where I’m terrified that I’m gonna fuck up? That Tate could have a better dad than me? Just because I worry, doesn’t mean I’m going to leave my son.”

“Parker isn’t my son.”

“Wow. Coming from the guy who not even a week ago claimed Parker as his son without a second thought. Hudson told me about that too, asshole.” There was a beat of silence before Saco sighed. “He’s not your blood, but that’s your son. From the way you said that, I know you don’t even believe the shit you’re saying.”

I didn’t, and I wanted to die for even letting the thought cross my mind.

I’d spent that night, and the next day, in my studio trying to edit. Trying to do anything to get my mind off Reagan and Parker. Nothing was helping. I’d been the one to get scared and leave them. I’d been the one to call it off before any of us could get more invested. But now I felt hollow.

I couldn’t go back to my place without seeing them there, and here, in the studio, flashes of Reagan and I together were hitting me hard.

I hadn’t slept for more than thirty minutes last night before I’d woken in a panic, completely drenched in sweat. And this time, it hadn’t been flashbacks of my time in the army. There hadn’t been a flashback, nightmare, or dream . . . just the sense that I’d physically lost both Parker and Reagan and couldn’t find them.

Hudson was calling me every few hours to yell at me, and though I’d grabbed my phone to call Reagan over a dozen times, I hadn’t gone through with it and she’d never tried to get ahold of me.

My phone rang, and I grabbed for it quickly. Disappointment and regret poured through me when I saw Saco’s name instead of Reagan’s. My thumb hovered over the red button before I gave in and hit the green.

“Hello?” Nothing came from the other side. “Saco, you there?”

A pained cry sounded, and I looked at the screen on my phone to confirm it
was
Saco, before I tried talking to him again.

“You there? What’s wrong?”

Silence greeted me for long seconds, and just as I started to say something again, his strangled voice came over the line. “He’s gone.”

“What? Who’s gone?” Panic filled me thinking about Parker. But I tried to calm myself, knowing Hudson or Reagan would have been the one to call me about that.

“He’s gone—it’s all my fault—he’s gone.”

“What happened, Saco, who’s gone?”

“Tate,” he finally choked out.

When he didn’t say anything else, and all that met me was hard sobs, I asked, “She took him from you? How can she do that?”

“No!” he yelled, and a groan that didn’t even sound human left him. “I killed him. I killed him—it’s my fault—Tate’s dead. Oh God, he’s dead! I killed my son!”

I almost dropped the phone as I struggled to find my couch to sit down. This had to be some sick, twisted joke because of last night.

Right?

“Fuck!” he roared until more sobs choked off his words.

Wrong.

“What happened?” I finally managed to ask.

“I was driving, and he died. I don’t—I don’t—why couldn’t it have been me?” he yelled, and somehow, I knew he wasn’t asking me that question. “This can’t be happening, he needs to be okay, I’ll do anything.
Anything
, you hear me? God damn it! Take me instead!”

“Brody, no. No, I’m so sorry. God, when did this happen?” I asked when he’d been quiet a few minutes.

“Early this morning,” he groaned. “Olivia sent me to the store, she said she just wanted some quiet time so I took Tate with me. It was icy, so fucking icy, so I was being careful. We were stopped at a red light, and the guy—the guy behind me couldn’t stop.” Brody didn’t say anything else for a minute as more cries filled the phone. “It pushed us out into the intersection and we got hit hard. I couldn’t stop the car from spinning—I swear to God I tried! I tried so damn hard! It just wouldn’t stop, I couldn’t stop us. We hit a median, but another car that had been trying to avoid us swerved into us. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up in an ambulance, and Tate—he was—fuck! This isn’t real, Steele! Tell me this isn’t fucking real! Tell me he’s still alive.”

“I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry.” I couldn’t force anything else out. I couldn’t believe this was happening to him, I didn’t know what to say to help him. I was in shock and thinking the same thing. That this couldn’t be real. But the pain in his voice . . . you couldn’t fake that.

I listened to him break down harder than he had the entire conversation, and tears filled my own eyes when he continued to scream his son’s name over and over again. His son, who he’d fought so hard to be able to see, who wasn’t even a year old, who was taken way too soon.

My chest ached for my friend, and my body screamed at me to get Parker and hug him tight. To keep him safe from anything that could possibly happen to him.

I knew then that I’d made the wrong decision. That I’d been quick to act on the first insecurity that popped up—all because of some other guy’s experience—and had possibly ruined everything. I needed Reagan and Parker. They were my family . . . my peace.

“Don’t let them go,” Saco said minutes later, his voice hoarse.

“What?”

“My son is gone, St—” he broke off with a cry. “I can’t get him back. You can . . . don’t let them go.”

“Brody, what can I do? I’ll get on the first flight to Oregon, I swear. But what can I do?”

“Just don’t let yours go. Promise me.”

“I’m not. I can’t let them go.” I grabbed a shirt and threw it on over my head before searching for my wallet and keys. “I’m so sorry. I’ll get Hudson, and we’ll be out there as soon as we can, all right? I’ll call you when I know details.”

“He can’t be gone,” he whispered.

Knowing there was nothing I could say, and that he needed someone now, I kept him on the phone as I left for Hudson’s apartment, and continued to listen to him cry until he told me his brother had just shown up and ended the call. Hudson hated me right now, but I knew I’d fucked up and was prepared to do anything to make it right again. But right now I was fighting with myself over whom to go to first. Reagan, or Saco. I needed to see her just as much as I needed to get to Oregon.

Like Saco last night, all that was going through my head was the definition of the warrior ethos from The Soldier’s Creed. “I will never quit,” is followed immediately by, “I will never leave a fallen comrade.” Those words went much deeper than the obvious, and right now, Saco was struggling. We needed to be there for him.

Pulling up outside Hudson’s building, I kept my car running and ran up the stairs to his apartment. I started banging on the door immediately, and didn’t stop until it opened.

I tried to dodge the flying fist too late and stumbled back as my hand went to my jaw.

“What do you want, you piece of shit?” he growled, and the look on his face was clear. He wanted to murder me.

“I know you’re pissed, I know. I’ll talk to you about that, but right now we need to buy tickets and get to Oregon.”

He hadn’t been expecting that, and his anger faded to confusion as his head jerked back. “Oregon? What—why?”

“Saco didn’t call you?”