A father he clearly adored. Tad wasn’t Cole’s father. He may need to address his priorities, but he wasn’t an abusive asshole.
Maybe they could be a family again…
“No.” Tad shook his head. “I mean, I’ll always love her. She was the first girl I ever loved, and she’s the mother of my child. But I’m not in love with her. I was for a while after we split, but not anymore. I’ve realized I’m not a one-woman-forever kinda guy.”
Cole shuddered. Christ. That sounded awful. “Hey…whatever floats your boat.”
Tad laughed. “I like it. It suits me.” He regarded Cole for a beat or two. “Look…I had something great, and I messed it up. That was probably always destined to happen because I’ve always been a bit of a screwup, but Jane deserves better.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Tad gave a brisk nod, clearly not insulted by Cole thinking he was a screwup. “Now…correct me if I’m wrong, but you live in Australia, right? And she has a kid and a family and roots and a business she’s proud of that she built from the ground up here. On the other side of the world from you and your life. And dude, from what I’ve read, you don’t even have a job right now, and that’s been a pretty big bone of contention between Jane and me, so…if you can’t give her what she needs, then stop messing with her. She’s a good person, and she doesn’t deserve to be hurt again.”
Cole’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like that he was agreeing with Tad this much. But for her to be hurt, she’d have to care, to be invested in what they were doing. There’d have to be…feelings. They hadn’t talked about that. Or what came after. They’d talked a bit about their pasts but had mostly lived in the present.
They certainly hadn’t talked about the future.
“There they are,” Tad announced as Finn bolted out of the restroom and ran across the terminal to his father, expertly dodging a dozen or so people in the process. Jane followed at a more sedate pace. She was in capris and a T-shirt, her hair loose, and feelings crowded Cole’s chest.
Well fuck…
An hour later, he was waving to Finn as he disappeared through security, holding his father’s hand on one side and Carl in his small carry cage in the other. He didn’t know if Jane was going to cry or not, but he sure as hell felt a burning pressure behind his eyes, and he’d cried once in his adult life—when his mother had died.
Not even those painful months after the accident or when it had become evident he wasn’t going to play rugby again. But looking at the bob of that little blond head as he walked away from them, emotion welled in his chest. It was probably the last time he was ever going to see the kid.
Yes, he’d assured Finn that he’d come and visit him in California, because Finn had been upset Cole was going back to Australia soon and he wouldn’t see him again. But the reality of that was…unlikely. And he just hoped Finn would soon forget him.
Watching him now, chatting merrily to Tad as he skipped along beside him, it looked like he already had.
He slid a look sideways. Jane was still waving and smiling—just in case, Cole supposed—and it wasn’t until Tad and Finn turned a corner with one final wave in their direction that she dropped her hand and her smile and turned to face him.
“What were you and Tad talking about before? When we were in the restroom?”
If she was emotional about Finn leaving, she wasn’t showing it. Or maybe she was and it was morphing into that old irritability from their first days together.
Their much-appreciated days.
The feeling that she was walking this—whatever it was—back returned. She was distancing herself. It was frightening how quickly the closeness they’d shared the past couple of weeks had evaporated. In less than a day, they were back to the beginning again, wary and standoffish.
“I guess he was…warning me off. Looking out for you.”
“Oh Jesus. Are you serious?” She crossed her arms and frowned at him. “What the hell is it with guys? I don’t need either of you looking out for me like I’m some nineteenth-century ingenue.”
“I know.” And he did know. He hadn’t started the conversation, for crying out loud. “Are you still in love with Tad?”
“What?” she squeaked as her frown morphed into a glare.