Page 74 of Timeless

“You are fucking selfish, that is what you are. Fucking selfish bitch!” I couldn’t stop myself.

“Jax, maybe you should walk it off?” Troy gave me a slight push, like a walk would calm me down.

“Fuck off,” I growled at him and my eyes were back on Amber. “You weren’t just going to ruin my life. You were going to ruin our son’s. He was going to no longer have a mother!”

Didn’t she get it? Leaving Jack to me made no sense whatsoever! I wasn’t a father! I didn’t know how to be a parent! Jack didn’t even fucking know me! And she was expecting him to just turn to me, like she didn’t matter?

“Jax, take a walk.” Tyler was the one to tell me to walk it off this time.

I shook my head. My eyes were still on Amber. “You don’t give a fuck about our son. If you did, you wouldn’t have had that gun to your head! You would have come to me! You’ve always been a cold, selfish bitch who puts what you want first. Not giving a fuck what anyone else wants!”

“Jax, seriously, you need to calm down.” Troy’s voice was firm. “Amber was only doing what she thought would save her son’s life.”

“She doesn’t give a fuck about Jack! She has always been heartless! Some things never change right, Amber?” My eyes narrowed at her, my vision blurry from the amount of tears that were falling. “You think of one person. Yourself. You were thinking of yourself when you went to England. You were thinking of yourself when you got involved with fucking Tae and I had to save you from it. You were thinking of your fucking self again when you turned your back on me in prison!”

Amber was crying now. “I just wanted Jack safe. That was it, Jax.” Her voice was soft, weak, and I heard the slight plea to it, as if she couldn’t take one more thing I said.

But I ignored it. “Don’t fucking play that card! If you wanted him safe, you wouldn’t have started dating a fucking defense lawyer! You were asking for trouble!”

“I didn’t know Will was going to put him in danger!” Tears were rolling down her cheeks. “I didn’t know, Jax, I swear!”

“Did you even think what it would do to Jack, letting the man you were fucking into his life? Did you think just once, what impact will this have on Jack?” I glared at her a bit harder. “Nah, you fucking didn’t because again you are a selfish bitch!”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t scream back at me. She knew it and I knew it, that was what she was. Fucking selfish. She just stood there silently crying, looking at me. Like I was breaking her heart.

Tae was suddenly at Amber’s side. “I guess she was being a selfish bitch when Jack got croup and she slept at the hospital every night.” Tae was suddenly getting himself involved in our argument

“She didn’t have insurance, she got a bill for over a hundred grand. Because he was in ICU. She worked three jobs to afford the payments. And managed to care for Jack full time.” Tae words were bitter and he was acting like Amber’s bulldog. “She didn’t trust anyone with Jack. Only Chelsea. Not even me. She never let a man near her or her son. She worked night shift every night for nine months.” Tae pointed a finger at me “And would only sleep when Jack took day-time naps. She literally ran on a few hours’ sleep for nearly a year because she was in so much debt!”

My eyes were on Tae, as he glared at me.

“I guess she was being selfish again, when she stopped eating because Jack’s medication bill went up. She lost over fifteen pounds. And was close to being admitted for anorexia when I came over. Do you think she would take a dollar off me? No.” Tae pushed me away from Amber completely.

“She never let any man, not me, not Will, no man, be Jack’s dad. She made sure you were his dad. That he knew every detail about you. Even though while she was pregnant she couldn’t get out of bed, because you left her that fucking depressed! Still, she told Jack everything about you. Made sure that he knew you were his father. Even though it would hurt her to speak about you, she would.” He was glaring at me, like he had been waiting to have this argument with me.

I couldn’t see Amber now. Tae was completely blocking her.

Tae was giving me a look he was known for, a calculating killer. “I guess you would also consider her selfish when she was forced to have Jack by a C-section and couldn’t have pain relief because Jack’s heartbeat was so weak that the drugs could have killed him. She was literally sliced open, with nothing more than one morphine shot!”

“Tae, stop,” Amber said softly behind him. I couldn’t see her.

“Nah, Amber, if he thinks you are selfish, he should have some more facts. Like how Jack and Amber were in a car accident. A drunk driver ran a red light. Jack needed emergency surgery. Amber fractured her arm in three places. But she wouldn’t go into surgery until Jack got out and woke up. Two days it took for Jack to wake up. She wouldn’t even have a fucking pill for the pain because she blamed herself! Two whole fucking days she stayed in pain!”

“Tae, stop it!” Amber gripped his shoulder but he shrugged it off.

I stood frozen, as Tae roared facts about Amber’s life.

“As for Will, he hounded her for a full year. She got me to run every possible background check on him before she even went on their first date. He didn’t meet Jack until they had been together for over six months. Jack was always told Will wasn’t his father. Amber made sure Jack never depended on him like that. Will never moved in. Will never paid one of her bills. And he was never considered to be Jack’s dad.”

Tae took a sharp breath in, and continued to glare at me. “You, Jackson, are the selfish one. You left Amber. You pushed her away. And like you wanted, she picked up her life and moved on. Even though every day she had to look in a spitting image of you, and care for your son.” Tae pointed to the bay. “She was about to kill herself to make sure her son was safe. You consider her selfish? Do you know the guts it took her every day to wake up and be a single parent?”

Tae wasn’t just defending Amber right now, he was giving me the bigger picture.

“She didn’t have money. She didn’t have family. She had herself. That was it. She wouldn’t let me care for her. And you want to know why? You want to know why she pushed everyone away?” Tae leaned in closer to me. “Because the only man she trusted broke her fucking heart to pieces. She never let anyone have that power over her again, or her son.”

Tae looked around at the boys and then back at me. “And then you all fucking show up and think you have a right to be in her life.” Tae scoffed and shook his head. “Who the fuck do you think you all are to have a place in her life now?” His eyes were back on me. “You think you have a right to be in your son’s life? You think that Amber was just trusting you to be in sole care of Jack, not thinking it through? She knew the only other person in the world who would love Jack as much as she did, is you.”

I didn’t know what to say. I think that was Tae’s plan. To make me speechless. The boys were quiet and were all looking at Amber, who I still couldn’t see because Tae was standing in the fucking way.

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