by Marie James
“And?” How the hell did he find out so much damn information that he knows his full name? “I like that name.”
“It’s my fucking middle name.”
“How would I even know that?” I’m grasping at straws but lying seems to be the only thing I can manage right now.
As a teen with hearts in her foolish eyes, how many times did I write Mrs. Ignacio Alejandro Torres on my notebooks for school after seeing his driver’s license photo at the movie theater? A million or more at least.
“You always were a shit liar, Tinley. I want a paternity test.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I’ll get attorneys involved if I have to.”
I swallow the lump threatening to shut off my air supply and glare at him. By this point, I’m shaking nearly uncontrollably, and he must notice because he takes a step back. The distance doesn’t help because I’m not afraid of him physically. It’s the havoc he can cause in my life right now, all the other lies I’ve told coming to light that have the power to ruin my life.
“Please, Ig. Don’t do this.”
He blinks at me, his eyes drifting closed for a second too long before he opens them again, the fire there increasing.
“It’s been nearly thirteen years,” I continue. “Can’t you just leave it alone?”
“Leave it alone?” he spits. “Are you serious right now? You’ve robbed me of more than half of his childhood.”
“And you told me you didn’t want anything to do with me. Why would I think for a second that you’d want to be involved in a child’s life?”
“So, you’re admitting he’s mine?”
I look away, unable to speak the truth.
“I still want a paternity test.”
“You weren’t here,” I sob, the threatening tears making themselves known. “When I came back to tell you, you were already gone. Your grandfather wouldn’t tell me where you were. He said any kid you had a part in conceiving was already at the shit end of the gene pool and would be better off without you.”
He doesn’t cringe with the news, but there’s never been any love lost between those two.
“How hard did you look for me, Tin? How many times did you search my name online or ask around about me, hmm?”
I clamp my mouth closed because the answer is not once. I was so bitter back then, an angry, pregnant teen who had the ability to hold on to a grudge despite the news being every part his business.
After being turned away at his old house, I went right back to Dallas, relieved that Ignacio wasn’t around to relay the news to. I did what I thought at the time was my due diligence and never had the urge again. I had my parents there to help. I didn’t need a man that didn’t want me trying to tell me how to raise my son. If he could walk away from me so easily, I wouldn’t give him a chance to do the same thing to Alex.
“You knew that night,” he whispers, his eyes searching mine for the truth. “You said you had something else to tell me, but when I asked, you just walked away.”
I force my eyes to stay on his even though every cell in my body is telling me to look at the floor in shame. Adding thirteen years of struggle, of maturity, of experience makes what I did that night shameful, but the woman I am now doesn’t resemble that scared, bitter girl, and it’s not fair to compare the two.
“A paternity test, Tin. I’m at my grandfather’s old house. Let me know when it’s arranged.”
He forces a business card in my hand before turning and walking away.
Chapter 5
Ignacio
“You’re saying she did the right thing?”
“I’m saying you broke a teenage girl’s heart—”
“To keep her from staying in this fucking town,” I remind him. “If she stayed—”
“It looks like she ended up there anyway.”
“And that’s my fault?”
Deacon Black, my boss and the owner of Blackbridge Security, sighs on the other end of the line.
“I’m not saying it’s your fault.”
“But if I didn’t do what I thought was right back then, I wouldn’t have missed out on nearly thirteen years of my child’s life.”
“You made a decision as a young man. I can’t say that it was a mistake or not.”
I know it was a mistake. I knew it back then, but I was looking at things from my point of view. I would suffer the fiery pits of hell a million times over if it meant ensuring Tinley wouldn’t be stuck in this town with nothing to her name, but even breaking both our hearts didn’t stop it from happening.
“She made a decision as a teenage girl, one I’m sure, from what you’ve told me about her, she thought was the right one.”
I can’t argue with his reasoning, but it doesn’t make the situation suck any less.
“I’ve missed everything,” I whisper. “Can you even imagine?”
“No, Ig. I can’t.”
Deacon’s wife, Anna, is currently pregnant with their first child, and the man is beyond ecstatic at the prospect of being a father.
“I also don’t know what I would’ve done if Dani had gotten pregnant at such a young age either. I know I wouldn’t have been prepared to be a dad.”
“But you would’ve given it everything you had,” I argue.
“And you would’ve too. Listen, you can’t turn back time. What’s done is done. Right now, you need to decide how you’re going to approach things going forward. Wren said he sent you the information he gathered. Have you had the chance to go through it?”
“No.” I’ve had the time but opening the file that’s been sitting in my email for the last forty-eight hours is the equivalent of pulling the pin on a bomb. I don’t know what I’m going to find, but I’m certain it’s the timeline of the only girl I’ve ever loved life falling apart.
“You need to go through it. Maybe there’s something in there that explains why she didn’t put much effort into tracking you down.”
“Maybe,” I agree, but I doubt it.
I’ve been called stubborn more times than I can count, but that character flaw of mine has nothing on Tinley Holland when she has her mind set to something. It’s why I had to threaten her with legal action if she didn’t set up the paternity test.
I haven’t seen her since I confronted her on the steps of a house I never thought I’d set foot on again, but she did send a text with information for the test I demanded.
“The paternity test is scheduled for this afternoon.”
“So, in less than a week, you’ll know the results.”
“I already know what the test is going to say. This is only a formality.”
“Because you think she’s going to cause problems when you try to get to know him?”
God, I want to know him. I want to have been there for his first smile, first steps, his first day at school. Hell, every single day between then and now, but what would our lives look like? I know I wouldn’t have been able to leave her even if it was to join the Army and make a better life for the three of us.
“Should I?”
“Should you what? Get to know your son? You know the answer to that, man.”
I do. I know I can’t walk away now.
“I’m going to need some time.”
“Take all the time you need.”
“He’s so angry,” I confide. “I only had a quick brush with him at the school, but that kid is in the exact same place I was when I was his age.”
My blood runs cold thinking about why I was so angry at that point in my life. There was no light, no hope for me back then. My home life was miserable, each day a waiting game to see just how drunk, just how violent Mateo was going to get before the alcohol in his bloodstream made him pass out. Just the thought of Tinley putting my son in that situation makes my blood boil. Is Alex so angry because of the men she’s had in her life all these years? If Wren’s dossier even hints at someone hurting him, I may be a felon before I get the chance to return to St. Louis because I would neve
r leave a man breathing that caused her or him an ounce of pain.
“Don’t expect him to run to you with open arms. She may be the one who told the lie, but that blame is going to fall on your shoulders. You forced her out, and there’s no telling what she said to explain your absence.”
“I know. I’ll keep you updated as I know more, but I still have to settle my granddad’s estate. There’s no telling what’s going to happen where Tinley is concerned.”
“We’ll be here when you get back, but if you need us down there with you, all you have to do is let me know.”
He’s my family. All the guys there are, and I’m grateful for every one of them.
“Thanks, man,” I say before getting off the phone.
I want to go see her. I want her to tell me what her life has been like since that night before graduation, but I resist. I’ll have the opportunity soon enough.
The file Wren sent taunts me from my email account, and as much as I want her to tell me everything, waiting three to five days until the test results are back isn’t going to happen. Action has always been easier on my part even if that action may bring pain. Ignoring something has never made it easier. Things don’t just disappear when you ignore them, and I know this isn’t going to either.
I sit on the worn sofa, windows open to air the cigarette stench out of the house and start to scroll.
Tinley did move with her parents to Dallas thirteen years ago. She delivered Alejandro Cooper Holland at Medical City five short months after leaving Houston, meaning she was nearly four months pregnant when she left. It brings a million questions to mind. Did she know long before that night? Was she keeping it a secret because she was ashamed or afraid to tell me? Was she planning a surprise before her dad dropped the news about the new job?
The birth was uneventful with no complications and after a day in the hospital, she was able to bring him home. She stayed with her parents, making every doctor’s appointment that was scheduled, returning to work at a gas station only four weeks after the birth.
There’s not much information about Alex’s early life. There are no hospital visits, child protective cases, nor anything that would suggest he was abused by someone in her life. The images Wren forwarded from her mother’s online picture printing account make me tear up, regret coiling with the anger I can’t seem to let go of. A smiling, happy little boy is in photo after photo, cataloguing his first steps, first birthday. There are some of him playing in the mud in a small backyard, one of him staring up at a Christmas movie with a look of awe on his face.
Cooper Holland, Sr., the man who hated the sight of me, is also in several. In each one, a huge smile on his face as he played with, held, and watched his grandson. It eases my heart to know that even though the man hated me, he didn’t take that out on Alex. There’s nothing but love and devotion in his eyes in every single photo, and that makes the back of my eyes burn, knowing he was a better man than the one I was left with. My son has known love and happiness, and regardless that Tinley kept him a secret from me, I’m grateful to know he’s experienced those things.
Then I get to the part in her timeline that explains the loss of her father—a faulty beam and an unobservant crane operator taking him from them way too soon. Everything was downhill from there. Cooper died in February. By June, they lost the house in Dallas, her mother unable to keep up with the mortgage with her husband’s income gone. Mae Sheehan, Tinley’s maternal grandmother, owner of the house they’re currently living in, died in October, and they were in Houston by November of that year, living right back in the middle of the town I broke her heart to get her out of.
Alex was nearly seven when he lost his grandfather, and through sporadic pictures on that same account, I watch my son transition from the happy, smiling boy he once was to the sullen, pissed-off young man he is now.
There’s no proof of a man ever having been in Tinley’s life, but Wren sometimes likes to play God, and I wouldn’t put it past him to leave those pertinent pieces of information out of the file he sent me.
I move from the email app to text and fire one off to him.
Me: Is this everything you could find on her?
Wren: Every last bit.
Me: You aren’t hiding shit?
Wren: Why would I do that?
I don’t respond, knowing he hates it when he’s left unread.
Wren: I swear on Puff Daddy that I didn’t leave anything out.
I continue to look down at my phone without responding.
Wren: I swear, man. There is no husband or serious boyfriend. As far as I can see, she hasn’t really dated. She works an insane amount of hours and always has. She has no other children. No medical records of miscarriages. The woman isn’t even on birth control, so she probably isn’t having sex.
Knowing he dug that deep makes me growl at the device in my hand.
Wren: From the looks of it, she’s taking care of her sick mother and doesn’t have time for much more than that and your son.
Of course, the guy would make the same assumption I would, but also knowing him, he dug deep into my background and has somehow managed to compare my baby photos to the ones of Alex. I know how similar we look. Despite my granddad’s hatred of all things relating to my father, he was never bitter enough to cut me out of the photos I shared with my mother. Those are still intact in the worn leather-bound books on the coffee table.
I flip from text back to the file in email and continue reading, ignoring the string of buzzes from the texts he’s firing off at me.
Brooke Holland was diagnosed with cancer two years ago, and despite hope that she’d beat it, the invasive disease was still present on her scans. She’s had several rounds of chemo and radiation with no changes. It’s only a matter of time before Tinley loses her mother, and my son loses his only remaining grandparent. The blows keep coming one right after the other to this family. How she’s stayed standing this long, I’ll never know.
I want to jump in and rescue her. I want to put a protective bubble around both of them and shield them from any further pain, but I know it isn’t possible. Not only do I not have a cure for cancer, but there’s a very slim chance Tinley will ever trust me to keep her safe again. I destroyed that chance the night I broke her heart by telling her she was just a great piece of ass, one that I was tired of.
When my phone alarm goes off, telling me it’s time to hit the road for the paternity test, I spend the entire drive over wondering what type of butterfly effect my actions that night had on her life.
If I’d stayed, or asked her to stay, would things be different? If we were together when Alex was born, would that have somehow altered Cooper’s work schedule to the point he wasn’t at work that day the crane fell and ripped him from their lives? Would Cooper not dying mean that Brooke would have better insurance than the Medicare she’s currently on? Would that in turn give her more options for treatment?
Could all of this pain and suffering been avoided if I hadn’t thought I was doing the right thing by shoving her out of my life that night?
Did I cause all of this?
Chapter 6
Tinley
The second my phone buzzes in my pocket, my heart nearly stops. It’s been almost a week since Ignacio showed up on my mother’s front porch, and although the text message I sent him about the paternity test showed read, he hasn’t shown his face since.
The continued buzzing can mean one of two things. Either Alex is in trouble again or Ignacio got the test results.
Either way, it’s horrible news. I finish checking out the people in my line at work and tell my manager I’m going on break.
I never thought I’d breathe a sigh of relief at seeing a missed call from the school, but right now, that’s the lesser of two evils.
The front office receptionist seems slightly aggravated when I tell her I won’t be able to leave work early to pick Alex up since he’s been in another fight and suspended for three days this time. But she underst
ands what it could cost me if I leave work early once again. She explains that he’ll be assigned in-school suspension until the end of the day.
Before my break is over, and right in the middle of my consideration to start drinking to calm my nerves from stress, I get another call from the school.
“I swear if he got into a fight in ISS, I’m going to—Hello?” I say when the call connects.
“Tinley?”
“Mike,” I say on a sigh.
The middle school principal was my science teacher in high school. He always had a little more compassion for the kids that needed it the most and that included Ignacio Torres.
“What has he done now?”
“The usual,” he relays as if boys getting into fistfights is an everyday occurrence, and maybe for him it is. “He didn’t start it this time. That’s the only thing that’s keeping him out of the alternative school.”
“Maybe that would be better,” I confess out loud. The staff at the disciplinary campus isn’t going to send him home every time Alex decides to bow up to someone on campus. They’re trained to deal with rougher kids, and I even hate thinking of my son that way, but his recent behavior isn’t winning him any citizenship awards.
“You know how things are over there. If you think things are bad with him, going there will only make it worse. I’m doing my best to keep him out of that place.”
I want to argue that his lack of follow-through will only give him more reason to misbehave, but I know the man is doing his best. He cares more than any educator I’ve ever met, and Alex is lucky the man is on his side.
“I know,” I agree.
“Besides, I think things may be turning around.”
“How so?”
“I know Alex will benefit from a positive male role model in his life.”
I freeze with the phone to my ear, my heart pounding in an uneven rhythm.
Of course, he knows Ignacio is in town, and although I’ve never confessed my son’s paternity to anyone other than my parents’, Michael Branford is a smart man. Not only does Alex look exactly like his father, but he also behaves just the same as well. I’ve seen the stubborn set of Ignacio’s jaw on Alex’s face since he was a baby getting annoyed with blocks that wouldn’t stack just right, and a million times since.