Chapter 31

Chapter 31
Max

“I want to see Angie,” Brayden said, pushing his bowl of cereal away.
It was nine o’clock in the morning and they’d skipped school because being kidnapped by his biological mother seemed like a really good excuse for Bray to play hooky.
“Angie’s probably sleeping,” Max hedged. “It’s still early.”
Fuck, but he didn’t want to think about Angie or the trickling feeling that Anna was right and he’d acted like an asshole. He needed to do what he should have done in the first place and keep his distance.
Focus on his son.
Suzanne wasn’t going to be in the picture again. She’d been unconscious when the police arrived, slumped over the steering wheel, bloodstream full of drugs and alcohol, and damned lucky she hadn’t killed Brayden or someone else. Currently, she was detoxing in jail and would be staying in those accommodations for a good long while.
Max might have felt guilty pushing for the harshest punishments for a pregnant woman, but it turned out she wasn’t actually pregnant at all. Another ploy, another manipulation.
But this time, it would be accompanied by criminal charges and jail time.
“I want to see Angie!”
“Brayden,” he warned.
His son burst into tears. “She’s dead, isn’t she? Mom killed her, and now I’ll never see Angie again, and—”
“What?” Max rounded the table and put his arms around Brayden, holding tight despite the fact that his son tried to push him away. “No. I talked to her last night. She’s okay.”
Brayden sniffed. “I don’t believe you.”
“She was hurt, but she texted me last night.”
Brayden crossed his arms. “Angie is nice. She likes me and wants to be my friend.”
“Bray.” Max sighed when his son stuck out his bottom lip.
“She was going to be my new mom, I know it.”
Yeah, Max had thought that, too. But that was before he realized that taking his focus off Brayden was a mistake that would put his son at risk.
“She was fun and loves me, and now—” His eyes welled up.
Max said the only thing he could, “Should we check on her?”
Finally, some light appeared in his son’s eyes. “Yes! We need to bring her flowers. And a card!” He pushed out of Max’s arms. “I’m going to go make her one.”
“I meant call . . .” Max trailed off with a sigh.
Sparky padded into the kitchen, eyed the bowl of cereal. Max narrowed his eyes at the dog and took it to the sink before spending a few minutes cleaning up the space. He hadn’t slept at all last night, had just sat on the floor next to Bray’s bed, listened to his son sleep, and thought about all the ways he could have lost him.
He could have lost Brayden.
He’d had a lucky miss, and now he needed to put all his focus back where it should be.
Max opened the pantry door, put the cereal away, then saw the wrapped box, an envelope adorned with his name taped to it.
“What is—?” That hadn’t been there the day before. He knew because Anna had stocked up at the grocery store while Brayden had been at school, and Max had helped her put everything away.
He picked up the box—it rattled and was surprisingly light. He tore open the envelope.
Max,
I know how much you missed these, so I had a work friend pick you up a box when he was in Vancouver. Enjoy your sugar fix, just don’t send the team’s nutritionist after me.
Love, A

“Fuck.”
“That’s a bad word.”
Max jumped and whirled around. Brayden was fully dressed, card in hand. “I know, bud.”
“Oh,” Bray said. “Angie asked me where we should hide it.” His voice got excited. “She even let me wrap it, and I put it in here because it’s food—” He clamped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry,” he said, voice muffled. “I almost ruined the surprise.”
Max stood there, eviscerated to the core.
He’d thought Angie was a risk? Fuck, but how could she be a risk when she was so fucking wonderful with Brayden?
“Dad?” Bray said. “Open it!”
Max tore the paper off, held up the box.
Brayden grinned. “Do you like it?”
“It’s only the best cereal ever.” Something he’d mentioned once in passing during their conversations. Something she’d actively gone out of her way to get for him. Something—
“Dammit, Anna was right,” he said. “I really fucked up.”
“Dad!”
He glanced down at Bray. “Sorry. But I owe Angie a really big apology. I wasn’t very nice to her last night.”
“You lost your temper?”
Max nodded. “Yeah, but worse. I was so worried about you and scared, that I took it out on her.”
Bray’s brows pulled down. “That’s not cool, Dad.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
And now, shit. How the hell was he going to fix this? How was he going to prove to her that he had room in his life for both her and Brayden? Because it wasn’t a space issue . . .
It was a how could he possibly live his life without this incredibly kind, beautiful, and gifted woman issue?
Spoiler alert. The answer was: he couldn’t.
“We need to get her really big bouquet of flowers,” Brayden said. “And chocolate, and—”
“We’ll get all those for sure, bud,” Max said as an idea occurred to him, a way that just might show her how important she truly was to him and Brayden. “But we have to make a stop and get a few other things first.”
“What things?”
Max told Bray his plan then asked, “What do you think?”
Brayden nodded determinedly. “I think it’s perfect.”