Page 57 of Chasing I Do
“Isn’t that pussy for bailing? Because it sounds like it got hard, you fucked up, and now you’re leaving her hanging to deal with the aftermath. And Mom.” Rhett cocked his head, then blinked. “Sorry, man, for a minute there I thought you were Kyle.”
Gage grabbed Rhett and pushed him up against the lockers, a loud bang echoing through the room. “This has nothing to do with Kyle.”
Rhett looked at Gage’s hands, which were fisted in his shirt, and lifted a brow. “Could have fooled me.”
Gage wasn’t so sure anymore either. Kyle was the hot head, the one who acted first and expected someone else to clean up his shit. And that’s what Gage had done his entire life. Clean up after Kyle.
Kyle was gone and Gage was still dealing with his messes.
“Fuck.” Gage let go of Rhett’s shirt, but not before giving his brother a final shove.
“You tore my shirt,” Rhett whined like a little girl. “It’s my favorite.”
“Your dog shit in my car.”
“We’re even on the shirt, but not the cheap shot. You’ve got one coming.”
“Whatever.” Gage sat on the bench and, resting his elbows on his knees, let his head hang. “I’m so tired of all this shit.”
“It’s about time.” Rhett poked at the hole Gage had torn in is shirt, then sat down next to Gage. “I don’t know how it all went down, and I don’t know how you’re going to deal with Mom, but I do know that you’ve waited a long time for her,” Rhett said. “And I would hate for you to miss out again because you were once again too afraid to tell her the truth.”
“I did tell her the truth, then I screwed it all up.” Gage let his head fall against the locker. “All I ever wanted to do was protect her, and somehow I managed to hurt her all over again.”
“Then, fix it,” Rhett said, as if it were that simple.
Nothing about this was simple. Gage could negotiate his way out of a Thai prison if he had to, but he couldn’t figure out how to give Darcy what she wanted and not bring her more grief.
“I don’t know how,” he admitted, hating the feeling of being helpless. “Margo will always be Margo, and I won’t put Darcy through having to deal with her. And Kylie,manthat little girl deserves the world.”
“So you’d rather sit here, crying on my shoulder because you can’t make a choice.”
Gage froze, because wasn’t that exactly what Kyle had done? He couldn’t choose, so he did nothing and lost it all.
Gage didn’t want to be that kind of man. And Darcy deserved more from a man than that. Gage wanted to be the kind of man who Darcy could count on.
The kind of man she could trust, who never disappointed her, and if for some reason he did, he found a way to make it right.
“Dad would choose love.” He’d probably send her a letter every week for the rest of her life until she knew she was loved. That she was special.
Rhett smiled and smacked him on the back. “So you admit that you love her?”
“Hell, yeah, I do.” Gage grabbed his keys and headed for the door. “I gotta go.”
“Tell Mom I say hi.”
???
To think that Darcy had considered Kyle’s funeral as the worst day of her life. That was a walk in the park compared to standing outside a mediator’s office, with a handful of character witnesses on call to attest to the fact that Darcy was a great mother.
Because Margo hadn’t just filed for custody, she’d filed under the guise that Darcy wasn’t fit to raise Kylie. Which meant that the authorities were involved now.
Talk about irony. When Darcy had needed someone to step in on her behalf, make sure she was well fed and had clean clothes to wear, there had been no one. And now, she’d given everything she had to being the best mom for Kylie, yet she had to convince a panel of strangers she wasn’t struggling to give her daughter the very thing that came so naturally.
Love.
“You sure you don’t want me to come in with you?” Jillian asked. She was not expected for another hour, but she’d come down to offer support.
“No, I think you have to wait until they call you in.” Darcy thought about walking into that big room and fighting for her daughter. Alone.
