Page 92 of Until August

“Like it or not, we’re a family, August.” Our eyes met. “Travis was the only father figure in Sage’s life for a long time.”

A long time?“How long are we talking about?”

She shook her head, her gaze drifting to a spot over my shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. You’re missing the point.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve gotten the point exactly right. When did you meet Travis?”

I didn’t even know why I was going down this road. What did it really matter? But now that I’d opened this can of worms, I wanted an answer.

“Don’t do this,” she said quietly.

She couldn’t even meet my eyes which meant she had something to hide. “Humor me. When did you meet him?”

She hesitated. “When I was eighteen.”

I let out a humorless laugh. “Of course you did. Before or after you met me?”

“Before,” she admitted. “But he was…istwelve years older than me, and nothing happened. I didn’t run into him again until I was working at a surf expo about a year after you went to prison.”

So that was therealreason why she’d sent me that letter. Did she go back to swimsuit modeling? Who cares? That wasn’t the fucking point. “You only waited a year to move on. Damn. You gotta love that kind of loyalty.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Oh yeah? Why don’t you enlighten me?” My voice had a hard edge to it.

“I don’t owe you an explanation. You were gone,” she gritted out, her eyes flashing with anger.

Just when I thought we’d gotten past all that, she held it over my head again. Would she use my mistakes to justify everything she did for the rest of our lives? “How convenient. So I was right. You sold yourself to the highest bidder.”

Her eyes flared. “How do you think all those bills got paid? Do you think a fairy godmother waved her magic wand and poof, all the bills disappeared?” She threw my words back in my face, her tone spiteful. Our facade of civility was forgotten in the heat of battle. “That’s not how it works in the real world,baby.”

How quickly she’d changed her tune. Two weeks ago, I was her savior. Now I was the enemy, and she wanted to ensure her words hit me exactly where they hurt.

Bullseye. Mission accomplished.

I was done playing nice with her. “I’ll be here at eight o’clock Saturday morning. I’m spending the day with my son.” It was not a request. “Make sure he’s ready. And if you decide to move to Hawaii, you can bet your ass that I will drag you through court.” I stabbed my finger at her. “I willnotgo down without a fight.”

I had nothing more to say, so I strode away before she could respond.

“I thought you’d changed,” she called after me as I climbed into my truck. “But you’re still the same asshole I met thirteen years ago.”

I didn’t even bother responding. Guess we were both done playing nice.

Funny how I’d forgotten that side of our relationship. We knew exactly which buttons to push and how to bring out the worst in each other.

AndIwas the asshole? The night we met, I’d rescued her from some asshole who was getting too handsy.

I jammed the key in the ignition and rocketed out of the fancy gated community. I narrowly escaped the gate as it closed behind me.

As I drove, my thoughts played on a loop in my head.

What was I going to do if they decided to move? I was a convicted felon. I wasn’t even allowed to leave the state of California. I’d had to get permission just to leave the fucking county.

Would I even stand a chance if I dragged her to court?

Fucking hell. I slammed my palm against the steering wheel.

I would do anything it took to keep Sage in my life. But at what cost? Was that really something he needed in his life?