Page 17 of A Return For Ren

Holy shit. He’d told them he was coming. How could they have left with his kid there?

Then he had to take a few deep breaths. He’d heard that Zara lived in the house in front of the daycare.

He ran to the door of the daycare and whipped it open. Zara turned her head quickly. “I think Daddy might have missed you.”

She was holding Max whose arms and legs started to look supercharged as he reached for him.

He put his hands out. “Hey, Bud. I’m sorry.”

“Are you apologizing to Max or me?” Zara asked.

“Him, but you too. Sorry. I lost track of time. I was cleaning up to leave and thought I had plenty of time when my mother stopped and asked if I had to get Max.”

Zara’s eyes landed on his chest and he felt some heat fill his body like it had so many years ago.

Like it’d been doing whenever he was on his way here.

“Painting today?”

He looked down and saw the gray smudge on his blue shirt. “Yeah. I’m helping my mother clean the place up as best as I can. I can do simple things.”

“I’m sure you’re more capable than just doing simple things,” she said. “But you came rushing over here so fast. You said you were on the way. I told you it was fine.”

“I know. But I didn’t want him to think I was abandoning him.”

“Because you were ten minutes late?” she asked, her head tilted. “He can’t tell time, I can assure you.”

He felt like a fool right now. He wasn’t normally this emotional.

“I know.”

Zara moved to get Max’s bag and hand it over, Max turned to reach for Zara. “Oh boy. I don’t think your daddy likes that you want to come back to me, Max.”

“He’s never done that before. Not even to Dee.”

“Dee?” she asked.

“His other babysitter. A colleague of mine, his wife watches Max. I mentioned that.”

“You did,” she said. “But you never said her name. It could be anyone. A girlfriend. Max’s mother. I have no clue.”

“And you want to know,” he said.

“Am I the only one that finds this uncomfortable if we aren’t talking about Max specifically?”

“No,” he admitted.

“It’s going to continue to be this way if we can’t talk.”

“It hasn’t seemed like the place or the time to do it,” he said.

“And you don’t know how much you want to tell me,” she said.

“You’ve got questions. Lots of them,” he said. “I owe you some explanations. Not in relation to Max.”

He watched her eyes go dark. Some anger, but mostly hurt. He’d seen that before and it killed him the last time he caused it.

“You do. But it’s been over thirteen years. Why do you feel like you owe it to me now?”