Crazy Stupid Bromance (Bromance Book Club #3) - Lyssa Kay Adams Page 0,96
you, I’ve lost Noah too. You made me doubt him, and I hurt him so badly.”
“I’m sorry, Alexis.”
“Stop saying that. Just fucking stop apologizing!” Alexis tightened her arms around her torso, a barrier against the crashing wave of emotions. Of anger. “What are you really doing here? What do you want?”
He stood. “A chance to make things right. A chance to be a father.”
“I don’t need you to be a father.” She advanced on him with rage in her steps. Rage she had tried to bury for so, so long. “Do you hear me? I don’t need you to be a father! I don’t fucking need you! I’ve never fucking needed you!”
She punched his chest. Once. Twice. He took the assault without a flinch, which pissed her off even more. She wanted him to wince. To cringe. She wanted him on his fucking knees. She wanted him to hurt like she hurt, to know the emptiness that gutted her now.
“She was enough. You were a sperm donor who never existed. Do you hear me?” She pounded his chest again. “I was fine without you!”
“I’m sorry—”
“Stop. Saying. That.” Every word was another punch against his chest. “I don’t need your apologies and your regrets.”
“Then tell me what you need, Alexis.” He gripped her arms. “Tell me, and I’ll do it.”
“I need you to apologize to her!” She yanked from the hold of his fingers and pointed at the headstone. “I need you to stand here and tell her you’re sorry for breaking her heart. For using her as a summer fling that meant nothing to you and then walking away. I want you to apologize to her for the dreams she had to give up. For making her work two and three jobs at a time to take care of me. I need you to apologize to her for letting her die without ever knowing that you actually fucking cared about her.”
“I can’t,” he said, his voice thick. “I can’t do that, because she’s gone. She’s dead, Alexis, and if you think that doesn’t tear me up inside, knowing that I can never say those things to her, you’re wrong. All I can do is make sure you never feel alone again.”
“Then take my fucking kidney, you asshole. Because if you don’t, you’ll die. And I’ll be left to stand in front of another goddamned gravestone, and if you think I’m angry now, just fucking wait until you die.”
“Which is exactly why I can’t go through with this. I want you to be part of my life of your own free will and because you want to be. But if you do this now, you’ll always wonder if I’m a father to you out of a sense of obligation or gratitude, and not simply because I want you there.” He tilted her chin up with his finger. “And I do want you there. I want you to be my daughter.”
A dam burst inside her. Horrified, Alexis buried her face in her hands. Sobs became a torrent of ugly sounds and snotty breathing and angry, ragged gasps. He reacted instantly. His arms came around her, and he held her. For the first time, father held daughter, and it was as strange and awkward as it was healing and new. He was warm and smelled like a blanket fresh out of the dryer. Her hands fell away from her face, and she let her arms dangle at her sides. Not returning the embrace but not rejecting it either. Hugging him back would have felt wrong, like a betrayal of her mother, and she just wasn’t ready to go that far.
Elliott must have felt her resistance, because he stepped back. Alexis became fascinated with the grass at her feet as she wiped her cheeks again.
“Can I ask you something?” he asked, shoving his hands back in his pockets.
She shrugged.
“What about Noah?”
Her battered heart took another beating. “What about him?”
“Where do things stand between you two?”
She looked up. “That subject is still a little above your pay grade, I’m afraid.”
“I understand. But can I ask you something else?”
She shrugged again.
“Do you love him?”
Heat rose on her neck. This was officially on the high side of embarrassing.
“You don’t have to answer that,” he said quickly. “But if I can offer some unsolicited advice? From someone who has been married a long time?”
She rejected the urge to tell him to shove it, but only because she did want some advice, and that pissed her off.