Molly McAdams - Capturing Peace

My forehead bunched together. “What exactly are you getting at?”

He held up his hands like he was surrendering. “I’m not trying to piss you off, and your girlfriend may be amazing. But I thought my girl had been amazing too. I’d admired how strong she was, and how she never wanted help from anyone. How she’d never let anyone into her and her daughter’s life before me. How she supported her and her daughter all by herself. It wasn’t until push came to shove that everything began unraveling, and I found out everything had been bullshit. An illusion that the four of us—­hell, maybe even more—­had fallen for.”

My body had locked up at some point, and I had to force myself to start breathing again. Keeping my expression blank so he wouldn’t realize he’d just explained Reagan perfectly, I stared at him for a bit longer as I tried to block the words he’d just told me, and finally shook my head. “You don’t know my girlfriend.”

“All right. I’m sorry, you’re right, I don’t. I just . . . when you said she was your girlfriend, it was like déjà vu, and I wish there’d been someone to warn me. So, I had to at least give you something to think about. I told you, she might be amazing. That was just my experience, and I felt like I needed to warn you or something. Sorry for overstepping my bounds.”

“Let’s just finish this shoot, yeah?” I walked over to grab my camera, and no matter how hard I tried not to think about it . . . I couldn’t stop.

His story, and thoughts of what Saco was currently going through, flooded my mind. One with an ex-­girlfriend who matched mine. One with a wife who had succeeded in trapping him in a marriage by getting pregnant. I’d never once worn a condom with Reagan. Even though she’d avoided men, she’d been on the pill ever since Parker was born.

Or, that’s what she’d told me.

Now that I thought about it. That didn’t make sense.

No . . . no. I knew Reagan. I knew her. I loved her. I loved Parker.

But then, why would she suddenly let in a guy after so many years of avoiding them? And a guy like me? I was damaged. I had demons. I was constantly trying to figure out what I’d done to deserve someone like her . . . and now us together made even less sense. Had I seemed like an easy target? Someone who would easily believe her story?

Pressing my hand against my forehead, I willed all this bullshit to leave my mind. I’d never doubted us, or been suspicious of her, until five minutes ago. And it was only because of that fucking story. I knew Reagan. She wouldn’t—­Christ. I’d just told Brody that I wanted to marry her and wanted to be Parker’s dad. He was right. Not even three months later and I was already thinking about marrying her? I couldn’t do this. I just—­I couldn’t.

Reagan—­ November 1, 2010

PARKER’S FACE LIT up when there was a knock on the door, and I nodded my head in the direction of it.

“Want to guess who that is?”

His smile got wider before he took off running for the door. “Coen! Did you have fun shooting that guy?”

I laughed and sighed. We somehow needed to get Parker off that whole “shooting” thing.

“Uh . . . yeah. I did.”

“Are you gonna stay tonight? I want you to take me to school tomorrow.”

I raised an eyebrow as they rounded the corner into the living room. Parker’s excitement was quickly draining from his face, and Coen looked like someone had just punched him in the stomach.

“Yeah, I don’t know about that. We’ll talk about it later.”

Parker shot me a confused look, and I tried to compose my expression, but didn’t catch it in time. He looked back and forth between us before walking over to stand next to me.

I took a step toward Coen, but stopped when his near-­black eyes met mine. “Are you feeling okay? Did something happen?”

“No, I’m fine,” he clipped out, his voice rough and low.

I glanced down at Parker when he wrapped an arm around my hip, and looked back at Coen—­who was now looking in the kitchen. Clearing my throat, I tried to ease the awkward tension that had settled. “Well, do you have something in particular you want for dinner?”

“Whatever you want,” he mumbled.

“Coen.”

He looked back at me and shrugged. “I said whatever you want, Ray. Order what you want.”

My eyes widened and my lips parted. He wasn’t raising his voice, but this Coen . . . well I’d never seen this Coen.

“Are you mad at Mom?” Parker asked from by my side, and my chest started aching right then.

Parker hadn’t asked Coen if he was being mean to me since the very first time he met him, and he’d never asked if Coen was mad at me. If he was catching onto the weighted feel to the room too, then I knew it wasn’t my imagination, and I hated that he was witnessing this at all—­whatever this was.

“Parker, honey, can you go to your room so I can talk to Coen?”

Coen shot me a look like he didn’t understand why I would want to talk, and Parker moved in front of me and tilted his head back to better see me.

“But he’s mad at you,” he said softly.

I put a smile on my face for him and ran my hand through his hair. “No, he’s not, but I do need to talk to him. Just adults, so can you go to your room until I come get you? You can take my iPad and play your games on there,” I added when he didn’t look like he would budge.

“Okay!” Running over to grab my iPad from off the couch, he took off for his room and shut the door.

“Co—­”

“Why’d you do that?” he asked gruffly.

“Send him to his room? You’re acting weird, and he could tell. I want to figure out what’s going on and fix it, and I don’t want him around for that.”

He put his hands out to the side. “There’s nothing to fix, Reagan.”

“Even Parker thought you were mad at me, and you’ve only been here for three minutes. So something happened that you aren’t telling me, or you are mad at me. Either way, we’re going to talk it out, or argue it out like we always do, and I don’t want Parker to see that. So tell me what’s going on.”

“Oh my God,” he groaned into his hands as he ran them down his face. “Nothing is going on.”

“I just saw you thirty minutes ago, Coen, and you were fine.”

“And I’m still fine!”

“No, you’re not!”

He laughed, but it was coated with irritation, and shook his head. “Whatever.” Grabbing his keys out of his pocket, he turned and began walking toward the door. “I’m not dealing with this tonight.”

“What—­you’re not dealing with what tonight? You’re upset, and I want to know why!”

“ This , your constant nagging. Jesus Christ.” He turned to face me. “I barely get in the door and you’re already on me trying to figure out if something’s wrong.”

My jaw dropped. “At your studio, you were the one who hinted at staying tonight, then when Parker asks you, you tell him you don’t know and sound like that is the absolute last thing you want to do.”

“I’m sorry for not wanting to spend the night, Reagan. I’m sorry I don’t want to take Parker to school tomorrow. Sometimes I need a night and a morning to myself. I’m not your husband, he’s not my fucking child. It is not my job to take care of you!”

I stumbled back a ­couple steps and shook my head back and forth. “What?” Hearing a sound off to my right, I turned and saw Parker standing in the hall. “Room,” I choked out, and watched until he disappeared.

“I need space. I need to step back so I can just think.” His tone had dropped the angry edge, and was now replaced with a heavy exhaustion. “Our entire relationship has moved so fast, and I just—­I don’t know. But I need time.”