Page 16 of Eight Years Later

Dylan was two or three when I was hanging out with Kat, and she made it clear she didn’t want him to be confused about our relationship by finding us in bed or anything like that. I respected her decision, where Dylan was concerned. I wanted to make sure we moved at whatever pace she was comfortable with because she was the one who had another person in her equation.

That didn’t mean I hadn’t spent time with Dylan, though. She’d brought him to the clubhouse, to club events. Hell, I’d given him his first motorcycle ride.

We’d been good friends.

He wouldn’t remember any of that, but I still hoped there might be something deep in his brain that at least told him that he could trust me.

“What happened was scary, huh?” His hands gripped the blankets at the edge of the bed, and he clenched his jaw. “You know it’s okay to say it was damn scary. You know what scares me? Spiders.”

I finally managed to pull his entire focus.

He turned slightly to look at me, a soft frown on his face that let me know he thought I was a little crazy. Or weird. Or both.

Nothing new.

When he still didn’t respond, I continued, “Yeah, they’re scary as hell. Eight legs. What kind of demon has eight le—”

“We just ran.”

I paused. Holding my tongue while he cleared his throat. Given his bloodshot eyes, it was clear he was trying to keep me from seeing how upset he was. “Yeah. You did. You guys ran. You got out of there. You got somewhere safe.”

He shook his head. “Mom tried to make it like no big deal, but… I should have done something. Told that guy that banged on the window to back off.”

Ah.

There it was.

He was the man in his mom’s life, and he felt like he hadn’t done enough to protect her. He ran— he didn’t stand and fight.

“Dylan, there was a guy on your couch who had been stabbed by this asshole,” I said seriously. “There are times when you have to know when to run into battle and when to retreat, regroup, and come up with a winning plan of attack.”

“Have you ever…”

“Retreated?” I laughed. “More times than I could count.”

It wasn’t a lie.

There were times when being the big man could have meant being the bigdeadman had I not walked or if one of my brothers hadn’t dragged me away.

Self-preservation kept you alive.

“I just want to make her proud,” he murmured, turning to face me a little more.

Opening up.

Letting me in.

“Young man, there will be plenty more opportunities for you to stand up for your mom, trust me.” He scoffed, obviously not convinced. “There’s gonna be coaches of your sports teams who will roll their eyes at your mom cheering like a crazy woman on the sidelines, and they’ll make stupid comments like, ‘hey, check this lady out’ to the dads.”

He was trying not to smile, but it was like a switch had turned on behind his eyes, making them a little brighter. “And what should I do if that happens?” he was humoring me, but I didn’t mind because it seemed like he was slowly sliding out of his shell.

“I think, in that instance, a stray ball off the side of the foot,” I explained, and got to my feet to demonstrate.

A gentle laugh from the doorway had me pause mid-kick.

“Are you teaching my kid how to take out his soccer coach?” Kat asked with a smirk.

I pressed my hand to my chest, gasping dramatically. “You really think I’d do something like that?”

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