“Colton, are you there?”

I pull myself from my thoughts—the same goddamn ones that have been running like a hamster on the wheel through the shit in my head over the past week. “Yeah,” I reply to my publicist. “I’m here, Chase.” I push the rags on the table in front of me away, but it doesn’t matter if I throw them in the trash or set a match to the fuckers because the image of Rylee coming out of that bar is still burned in my brain. Shocked eyes, parted lips, and an all-around look of being overwhelmed from the maelstrom that hit her when she left.

And it fucking kills me! Rips me apart that my bullshit—being with me—caused that look on her face. The fear in her eyes. All I want to do is be the one with her, my arm around her, but I’m not. I can’t because I don’t have the words or actions to make it better. To make it go away. To protect her.

“This is fucking bullshit and you know it.”

I hear my publicist sigh on the other end of the line. She knows I’m pissed, knows no matter what she says I’m not going to be happy unless she tells me to find the bastards that are harassing Ry, and let loose my need to destroy. “Colton, in light of Tawny’s accusations, it’s best that you do nothing. If you react, your public image—”

“I don’t give two fucks about my public image!”

“Oh believe me, I know,” she sighs. “But if you react the press eats it up and then the longer they hang around to see you screw up or lose it. That means the longer they hang around Rylee …”

Fuck all if she’s not right. But shit, what I wouldn’t give to walk outside the gates and give them my two cents worth. “One of these days, Chase,” I tell her.

“I know, I know.”

I toss my phone on the couch across from me and scrub my hands over my face, before sinking back in the couch and closing my eyes. What the hell am I going to do? And since when do I give a shit?

What the hell happened to me? I went from not giving a fuck about anything or anyone to missing Rylee and wanting to see the boys. Strings and shit. Fuck me.

A voice thanking my housekeeper, Grace, brings me back to the present from the fucking unicorns and rainbow shit that doesn’t belong in my thoughts. Shit that’s associated with pussies and whipped assholes. Shit that has no place in my head mixed with the other poison living there.

I wait a second. I know he’s there, watching me, trying to figure out my current state of mind, but doesn’t say anything. I crack open an eye and see him leaning against the doorjamb, arms folded across his chest and concern filling his eyes.

“You just gonna stand there and watch me or are you going to come in and pass judgment on me face-to-face?”

He stares at me a beat more and I swear to God I hate this feeling. I hate knowing that along with every other fucking person on the long and distinguished list, I am letting him down too. “No judgment, son,” he says as he makes his way into the room and sits on the couch across from me.

I can’t bring my eyes to meet his and thank Christ for fucking Grace or this place would be a disaster, and he’d really know how much this whole Tawny situation has fucked me up. I draw in a deep breath wishing I had a beer right now. Might as well get this party started, right? “Lay it on me, Dad, because I sure as shit know you’re not here to just say hi.”

He sits silent for a bit longer and I can’t fucking stand it. I finally look at him. He meets my gaze, gray eyes contemplating what to say as he twists his lips in thought. “Well, I can honestly say I stopped by to see how you were doing in the midst of all of this,” he says, waving his hand in the air with indifference, “but it’s pretty obvious since you’re in such a shitty mood.” He leans back in the chair and props his feet up on the coffee table and just stares. Shit, he’s making himself comfortable. “You gonna talk, son, or are we going to sit and stare at each other all night? Because I’ve got all the time in the world.” He looks at his watch and then back up to me.

Fuck! I don’t want to talk about this shit. I don’t want to talk about babies and gold digging women and little boys I miss and a woman I can’t stop thinking about. “Fuck, I don’t know.”

“You’re gonna have to give me more than that, Colton.”

“Like what? That I fucked up? Is that what you want to hear?” I goad him to react. And it feels good to push someone for a change. Everyone else has been walking around me, treating me with kid gloves this past week afraid of my temper snapping, so it feels good even if I’m going to feel like fucking shit later for doing it to my dad. “You want me to tell you I fucked Tawny and now I’m getting what I deserve because I dumped her like a hot fucking coal and now she’s coming after me saying she’s pregnant? That I don’t want a kid—will not have a kid—with her or anyone else? Ever. Because I refuse to let someone use a child as a pawn to get what they want from me. Because how the fuck can someone like me be a father to a kid when I’m just as fucked up now as I was when you found me?”

I shove up off of the couch and start pacing the room. I’m annoyed with him that he hasn’t taken the bait—hasn’t pushed back and given me the fight I’m itching for—and is just sitting there with that look of complete acceptance and understanding. Pacification. I want him to tell me he hates me, that he’s disappointed in me, that I deserve all that I’m getting right now because that is so much fucking easier for me to hold on to and believe than the opposite.

“And what does Rylee think of all of this?”

I stop and turn to look at him. What? I didn’t expect that to come out of his mouth. “What do you mean?”

“I asked, what does Rylee think about all of this?” He leans forward, elbows on his knees, eyes questioning me beneath arched brows.

“Fuck if I know.” I grunt and my dad shakes his head. God, I hate having to explain myself. But it’s my dad. My end game superhero, how can I not? “She was here when Tawny dropped the bomb. We got in a fight because I was taking everything out on her, being an inconsiderate ass. Bitching about a baby I don’t want when she can’t have one. I was in stellar form,” I tell him with a roll of my eyes. “We agreed to a few days apart to get our heads straight again. Get my shit together.”

“And you haven’t talked to her since?”

“What is this, Dad? Twenty fucking questions? Does it look like I have my shit figured out yet?” I snort out a derisive laugh. One step forward and then fucking twenty steps backwards. “Is Tawny still fucking pregnant? Have the test results come back yet? Yes, and a big fucking no … So no, I haven’t called her back yet. Chalk it up to just another thing for you to hold against me.”

He just stares at me. “Is that what I’m doing? Holding your shit against you? Because it looks like you’re doing a damn fine job of it yourself, son. So let me ask you the question you should be asking yourself: Why haven’t you pulled your head out of your ass and called her?”

I blow out a loud breath. Fuckin’ A. “I don’t want to go there right now, Dad.” Just go away. Let me down the next bottle of Jack while the clock ticks for the doctors to take their sweet ass time to decide if I’ve just fucked up the life of an unborn child. Because if the kid’s mine, fuck, he’s already starting off with a tainted soul and that—that’s something I can’t have on my conscience.”

“Well I do want to go there, so pull up a chair to your own pity party, Colton, because I’m not leaving until we finish talking. Understood?”

My mouth falls open, and I’m transported back to fifteen years ago and my one night in custody for drag racing. To that moment in time when he picked me up, raked me over the proverbial motherfucking coals, and told me how it was going to be from there on out. Fuck me. I’ve got chest hair and houses and shit now, but he can still make me feel like a teenager.