Page 5 of Wilde Abandon

Tanya hadn’t changed much from what he remembered.She was still sad, lonely, angry, bitter, and now dying of cancer.She didn’t have much time left.She used that to guilt him into coming.

He got no apologies from her.Barely a kind word.Though she did seem happy to hear that he’d made something of himself and he was doing okay.

Well, better than okay.

Dad had died years ago in a bar fight after getting out of prison early.Overcrowding.He’d picked on someone smaller and someone bigger came along and stopped him.Shocker.Nope.

Not even a tiny bit surprising given what Fox remembered about his nightmarish childhood.

Once he was away, he had feared they would come for him.Best day of his life, the day the social worker showed up to tell him his dad was dead.First day he could remember taking a deep breath and feeling like a weight had been lifted.He had actually slept the whole night through and woke up feeling like everything was different.Better.

He’d woken up that morning thinking maybe he could finally go back and see Melody again.It was safe now.He was safe.And so was she.But he had been fourteen and living in another part of the state.He didn’t have any way to get to her.Running away from his foster home would only get him into trouble.And he’d learned, the less trouble he got into the better things went for him.

Instead of going to her, he had reminded himself twenty times a day about the promise he intended to keep.Melody is out there.You’ll see her again.You’ll make things right.

Now that he was back in town, he’d snuck into the bar where she worked to catch glimpses of her, but he hadn’t approached her and made things right.Not yet.But soon.

“You’re doing it again.”Dean shook his head and studied the security camera feeds he’d installed yesterday outside of the building.

A building Fox bought two months ago when he moved back to town after a social worker at the hospital where his mother was being treated tracked him down to tell him about Tanya.

He never called her Mom anymore.She didn’t deserve that title.

That social worker hadn’t done him any favors by finding him.In fact, she’d been so enthusiastic about her success, she’d told his mom everything about his new life.

He’d had some good luck and learned the hard way that not every good thing was a blessing.It could also be a curse.He tried to keep his good fortune a secret because he’d learned everyone wanted something from him.

Like his mom.She thought his success was her ticket to easy street.What was his, should be shared with her.Family.Why?Because she gave birth to him, then treated him like a burden and turned her back on him time and time again when he needed her the most.

Anger, old and new, roiled in his gut.

“Dude!Get out of your head.”Dean picked up the coffee mug and held it inches from Fox’s face.“Drink.Wake up.We have shit to do.”

Fox took the mug and downed a quarter of it, then tried to focus on the screen in front of him and the lesson plans he was putting together for the computer class he was teaching later that day.

“You should not have come back here.This place…it makes you sad.”

This place and the memories it held made him angry.And, okay, sad.The kid who left here still lived inside him, and he hated it here.

But he remembered something—someone—good.

That little brat inside him had lashed out and been mean to her.He’d made her cry.He told her he hated her.And then he’d never seen her again.

Fox relived that nightmare night after night.

His biggest regret.

The thing he wished he could take back and couldn’t.

Maybe she didn’t remember.He did.And he hated himself for saying it and pushing her away like that when she was the only one who ever really cared about him.

Well, he had Dean and Max now.When Fox’s life changed in an instant and he needed help, he called them, the best friends he’d made in foster care.They didn’t even blink or take a breath.Max already worked with him at his software startup, Fox Solutions, back in Boston.But Dean, he quit his last job in security to be by Fox’s side.And for the last two years, it had been the three of them figuring out what mattered most.

For them, it was about helping kids who aged out of the system like them.The ones with no family, no support, no means.The forgotten.Because that’s what happened.You turned eighteen and your support disappeared.You were left to figure your life out on your own.

He’d had help.And Fox owed that person so much, because he didn’t have to go out of his way to help Fox.But he had.And Fox knew why, and owed him a huge, long overdue, in-person thank you.

Fox drank more coffee and checked his phone.No new messages.“Fuck.”