chance to spend time with your dad is more important. You don’t have to worry about Champ. He’ll never want for anything. Ever.”
“But I promised Zeph.”
“What did you promise, son?”
“I promised I would always be there for him.”
“I’ll take that on for you.”
“I don’t want you to.”
Oh, God, this kid was going to grow into a good man. Even if his no-account father didn’t come through, Todd had his mother. And Savannah was like a momma lion when it came to her boy. She would do the right thing by this child.
“I’m glad you’re taking that responsibility so seriously, son. I’m proud to know you,” Dash said, his voice growing embarrassingly gruff.
Todd raised his head. “Are you crying?”
Dash forced a laugh then. “No, I don’t do that sort of thing.”
The kid studied him. “You are crying, aren’t you?”
“Well, I’m trying not to. I’m going to miss you.” And the words got stuck in Dash’s throat. Until he uttered them, he didn’t even know how true they were.
A big fat tear rolled down the kid’s cheek. “Me too. I wish my dad was like you.”
A fountainhead opened up in Dash’s heart, and a spring of something clean and heady bubbled right through him. The spring became a creek, became a brook, became a river that grew and grew until its current washed away the self-pity he’d been feeling and smashed down the walls that had taken a lifetime to build.
And he didn’t fight the current. He expected it to smash him and batter him, but it didn’t do that. It carried him along to a peaceful place.
In that humbling moment, he had a name for the emotion that clogged up his throat and watered up in his eyes. He loved the kid. And the miracle wasn’t that he could love, but that the kid loved him back. But having Todd love him carried all kinds of responsibility with it.
He vowed, in that moment, that as long as he drew breath Todd would never want for anything. He would take care of this child, and he’d do everything within his power never, ever to let him down. And right now, doing right by this child meant letting him go.
“C’mon. I know you want to spend time with your dad, don’t you?”
Todd nodded. “But why can’t I have both?” He looked up at Dash. “Why can’t I be your friend?”
“You can. I’ll always be here. You can call me anytime.”
Todd wiped the snot from his nose with the back of his hand. “I don’t think so. They say you’re a bad man.”
“Who says?”
Todd shrugged. “Some lady who came to the school and asked me a bunch of questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Like whether I ever saw you drunk. Or whether you ever got into fights. Or whether you…” The kid looked away and pressed his lips together.
“Whether I what?” Dash’s temper made a sudden and unmistakable reappearance. His hands closed into fists, and the adrenaline surged through his system.
“You know.”
“No, I don’t know.”
“Touch me.”
Dash had to work very hard not to speak the long string of profanity that ran through his brain.
The kid looked up at him. “I told them you were okay. I told them that just because you liked to play catch you weren’t some weirdo. The woman who came and asked the questions didn’t believe me. She kept asking the same questions over and over again. I finally told her she was a bitch and that got me into all kinds of trouble with Mr. Middleton. But to tell you the truth, that woman was a bitch.”
Dash stood up. “It was probably a mistake to use that word.”
“Yeah, whatever. I’ve heard my father use it plenty of times.”
Dash squeezed his eyes closed. The fury he felt was like a white-hot poker to his insides. But he held himself together. “I’m grateful you told the truth.” It was amazing how calm he sounded.
The kid turned away. “Yeah, it didn’t get me very far, though. I mean, now I have to go to the Gilman School and live with Grandmother, and I can’t take the dog, and I can’t go to football camp.” He sighed. “And Zeph was going to take me fishing.”
“Zeph?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I see him around town. He knows all the good fishing spots. There’s no place to fish in Baltimore.”
“Son, there are always places to fish. You need to get your daddy to take you.”
The kid looked up at him. “Right, like that’s going to happen. Dad is more