He hadn’t done it on purpose, but the guilt had weighed on his conscience every night since, especially when Blake remembered his prayer. He’d woken up at three a.m. one night before the accident, drenched with sweat at the thought of becoming an unexpected father at age twenty-two, and sent a silent missive to the heavens.
Please make this all go away.
A week later, the accident happened.
Blake hadn’t been thinking miscarriage. He hadn’t been thinking at all. He’d just been panicked and exhausted, and even though he wasn’t a super religious person, he couldn’t help but wonder if the accident had been God’s way of punishing him for his shitty, selfish, off-the-cuff prayer.
“Can you meet me at our old place tonight?” Cleo glanced around. “I don’t want to talk about it here.”
Their old place—the playground they’d frequented as teenagers, back in the good old days when they were nothing more than friends. They used to stay up through the night, swinging on the swings and staring at the sky, musing about what their futures would look like.
Neither had expected things to turn out the way they did.
“Of course.” Curiosity burned a hole in Blake’s stomach. Before he could ask her for more information, the scent of Old Spice assaulted his senses.
Blake winced. He only knew one person who wore Old Spice.
“Blake Ryan.” Daniel Bowden’s scowl could’ve melted stone. “Didn’t know you’d crawled back into town.”
“Dad,” Cleo hissed.
“Cleo, go meet your mother at the checkout counter.”
“Dad, leave Blake alone. We just ran into each other.”
“Now, Cleo!”
She grit her teeth but did as he bid. Playground, eight o’clock, she mouthed behind Daniel’s back.
Blake blinked his agreement.
Once Cleo was out of earshot, Daniel jabbed a finger at Blake’s chest. To most people, he was an intimidating man. Six feet four inches of corded muscle and fiery energy, all of which he aimed at his daughter’s ex.
He’d liked Blake well enough when he’d dated Cleo. Hated him when he broke Cleo’s heart. Fucking loathed him after the accident.
It’d been a rapid and ugly fall for the relationship between Blake and his ex-future-father-in-law, and if there was one thing Daniel Bowden was good at, it was holding grudges.
“Mr. Bowden—”
“Shut up,” Daniel growled. “And stay away from my daughter. I don’t want you talking to her. I don’t want you even looking at her. You’ve hurt her enough. She’s finally found someone who treats her right, and I will not let you screw that up.”
“I wasn’t plan—”
Daniel continued like Blake wasn’t speaking, and his next words turned Blake’s blood to ice.
“You’ve been toying with her emotions since you were old enough to vote, and I won’t let you mess things up for her again. Because that’s what you do. You screw up people’s lives. The world sees a golden pretty boy, but I see you for what you really are: a black star, a heartbreaker, and a selfish bastard. You hurt everyone around you and, what’s worse, you can’t help yourself. It’s just what you do.”
The full moon hung round and heavy in the sky; in the distance, a dog howled, and the swings creaked in the quiet night, adding to the horror movie atmosphere draped over the empty playground.
Empty except for Blake and Cleo, who sat side by side on the swings.
Their old teenage stomping grounds.
How simple life had been back then, when all they’d had to worry about was where to apply to college and who they were going to prom with.
“Forgive my dad,” Cleo said. “I don’t know what he said to you, but I can imagine. He’s a little overprotective.”
“I don’t blame him.” Blake threw her a lopsided smile, like Daniel Bowden’s words hadn’t carved themselves into his heart with a sharp, poison-tipped pen.