Page 58 of Hold

“I promised I would,” Gabe said solemnly. “I’ve got a lot of promises to make up to you, my lad.”

Benji hugged him and sighed happily. Thea wished she could be that easily pleased.

“Jake!” she called. “Come down, please!” Her tone said that the “please” was merely a formality.

The thump on the stairs preceded him. Jake got to the bottom step without looking at his father and seemed set to continue to ignore him as he turned and sat at the table.

“Hello, Jakey,” Gabe said.

Jake snorted and folded his arms.Like Liam, she thought with a pang.

She wanted Jake to have a relationship with his father. Of course she did. But right now she was also feeling all the things Jake was feeling and was jealous that he could express them when she had to be the grown-up.

It’s worse for him. This is his father. He only gets one of those.

“Jake,” she said with as much patience and love as she could. “Please give your father a chance to… to talk.”

Gabe gently set Benji down. “You still sit in the same seat, Ben?” he said. Benji nodded and went to it. Gabe sat down next to Jake; Thea stayed on her feet, leaning back against the counter, a wooden spoon dripping gravy onto her shorts.

“Jacob,” Gabe began. “I know leaving you was unforgiveable. I don’t have a lot I can say to defend myself. I was… I think I went mad, son, I really do. I… didn’t know how to be a father—your mother said it often enough, and she was right—”

“Yes, you do!” Benji broke in. There were tears in his voice. “You do know! Tell him he knows, Jake!”

“It’s all right, Ben,” his father said. “He can say whatever he likes to me.”

Jake finally looked up. The two men were so alike, it brought a lump to Thea’s throat. Jake’s hair stuck up all over and Gabe’s curled over his collar, but their eyes were exactly the same.

“You can say whatever you want to me,” Gabe repeated, not backing down from Jake’s stare. “I’m back to stay, and I love you, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make you see it.”

“That’s such bullshit!” Jake shouted, going from zero to code red in a fraction of a second. He stood up from the table, knocking it sideways and tipping the wineglasses over. Thea’s broke. She didn’t make a move to pick it up.

“I can say whatever I want?” Jake went on, leaning over his father, who looked calmly at him, though there were pink spots in his cheeks and his eyes were bright. “Fine. What kind of father leaves his kids like that? Without even saying goodbye?”

“I wrote a—no, you’re right.”

“Damn fucking right I’m right!” Jake shouted.

“Don’t, Jake!” Benji cried.

“Shut up, Benji,” Jake snapped, pointing a finger at him but not taking his eyes off Gabriel. “He wasthree years old. You left him just when he was starting to really understand what a father is for! You know who taught him to throw? Me!” Jake used the finger to jab at his own chest. “You know who read to him when Mom was working to get enough money to feed us because you didn’t? Me. Who babysat him after school because she couldn’t afford aftercare?Me.”

Now his hand was twisted into a fist, and he shook it at Gabe. “That’s what you deserve to get punched out for. What you did to him. You want to apologize to someone? Do it to him. I don’t fucking need you. You’re wasting your breath. I’m fine. Apologize to the son who fucking gives a shit whether you’re around or not.”

Gabe didn’t back away from the fist or the spittle that landed on him with Jake’s words or the fury and hurt in Jake’s eyes. Benji was crying now. “Ben,” Gabe said, still looking at Jake. “It’s okay. I want him to say this, okay? I’m not leaving. Ever again. Mother of God, I swear it.”

Thea thought numbly that he was, too, leaving, and within the next few minutes if she could arrange it, but she couldn’t move or speak. This was for Jake and Benji, not her.

Jake continued to glare at him. Gabe held his gaze. “I am sorry,” he said slowly, deliberately. “If you knew how badly I’ve missed you, Jacob… all of you. You’re a young man now, and you were a boy then… and I missed it all.”

“You chose that!” Jake shouted again, but he was fighting to keep his anger.

“I know. I did. I regret it so much, son, I tell you. And I wanted to come back. But I… was too ashamed.”

“And now you’re not?” Thea said. Oh, look at that, she could speak after all.

He finally broke Jake’s gaze to look up at her. “I’ve sorted myself out now. I’m qualified now. I have a real job, and I’m staying.”

Thea wanted to fold her arms as well, as protection against the plea in his eyes. But she kept a tight grip on the wooden spoon and said, “A real job?”