Prodigal Son: A Sexy Single Dad Romance: Book 2 in the Marked Men 2nd Generation Series (The Forever Marked Series)

by Jay Crownover

  I told my dad I planned to educate myself so I didn’t do more harm than good the way I had in the past. It looked like I needed a crash course in BPD as quickly as possible. There wasn’t a single part of Remy I didn’t want to know inside and out.

  Remy

  MY HOUSE WAS a mess. I couldn’t remember the last time I took a shower. My limp and lifeless curls indicated it was far longer than it should’ve been. All I’d had to eat the last few days was the occasional breakfast bar and cup of coffee. My days and nights were totally reversed. I was always a night owl, but right now, I was going to sleep when the morning news came on and waking up when the evening news was starting. The only calls I’d answered in over a week were from Hyde and my current client.

  Letting my place get messy and missing a few meals was nothing new. Neither were the late-night hours. All those things came from working odd jobs, at odd hours, and living a hand-to-mouth kind of lifestyle. Plus, my mind was never exactly tidy and neat. My insides often matched the outside environment. It wasn’t exactly healthy, but it was a good indicator that I needed to tighten the reins and pay closer attention to where I was mentally and what I was doing physically for things to slip away from me the way they had.

  It wasn’t that my current project was so important or interesting enough that I put everything else on the back burner. I liked the client a lot, and she was a return customer, so of course, I wanted to keep a good working relationship with her. But what I really needed was to keep my mind busy and my hands occupied while Hyde was away. And since I’d worked so hard for the last few days, I was nearly done ahead of schedule, so I would have a few days free and could devote that time to him and Hollyn now that he was back in town.

  I was nervous when he left for the mountains. His job sounded dangerous, and he was pretty far away if something happened to him or to his daughter. It made me realize that any past relationship we might’ve had would have faced the pressures of the Army. Worrying about a mountain collapsing on him or him getting caught in a sudden avalanche was one thing; the idea of him being shot at and hunted down as an enemy was another. So, I stayed busy to keep most of my worst thoughts at bay. Loving and worrying about Hyde had always been the biggest challenge to my mental well-being. The difference today was that I now knew how to listen to my heart instead of the constant whisper inside my mind telling me things from our past I now knew were not true.

  For being so big and imposing, Campbell was a very intuitive guy. I’d only met him once, briefly, and that was all it took for him to ask if I wanted him to forward any updates he sent Hyde to me as well. I didn’t realize how badly I’d need that small peace of mind until he offered. It might be taking some time for me to find my footing with Hyde, but there was no stopping his little girl from stealing my whole heart. I adored Hollyn. She was just a bright spot on any day. She was so expressive and so easy to read. I no longer felt like she was an alien being I needed to approach with caution. I missed her almost as much as I missed her father.

  Hyde assured me Campbell wouldn’t mind if I stopped by to see her as long as I gave him a heads up if I was coming over. Ultimately, I decided against it. I wasn’t sure I would be able to leave her alone if I went and saw her, and I didn’t want to step on Campbell’s toes, especially now that Daire was done with her guard duty. He finally had a chance to do his job without a babysitter of his own. I didn’t want to disrupt his flow or the schedule he had in place for the baby. And in all honesty, he was a bit scary. He was even quieter than Hyde and twice as gruff. I was impressed my cousin didn’t cower in fear every time he tried to scare her off, or when they butted heads about something. I wasn’t so sure I could keep my cool if I was alone with him the way she had been. I wasn’t intimidated by much, so when I was, I knew to heed the warning signs.

  I could tell Hyde was disappointed I didn’t rush over to see him once he got back to town. I didn’t mean to be short with him, but he was obviously my biggest distraction, and he tended to overshadow everything else. I needed to keep my focus on the task at hand, so I could, in turn, give him my undivided attention, and not let either my professional life or my personal life suffer. I couldn’t balance multiple things of importance the way other people could. I could only cope by giving my all to one thing at a time due to my borderline personality disorder.

  I finished the last of what needed to be done around seven the following morning. After double-checking everything, I emailed it to the client for final approval and then crashed hard. I didn’t wake up until almost six in the evening. By the time I showered, picked up most of the mess I’d let accumulate, and checked in with my brother, who’d been threatening to send a search party looking for me if I didn’t respond to him, it was well past dinner time. Hyde called a couple of times while I was asleep and had left a handful of messages asking if I was all right. I felt a bit guilty for dropping off the map when he just got back, but I was doing my best to adjust to suddenly being accountable to someone else. My tendency to lose myself in one thing or another was probably another reason I’d been single for so long. Many of the guys I’d dated couldn’t handle being shut out and ignored when I had something else that needed my attention. They never seemed to understand I would eventually be done with whatever I happened to be creating at the time, and once I was, I would be free to focus on them again.

  It never occurred to me that Hyde might feel the same way.

  I figured he was used to my weird intensity and that he knew me well enough to know I was better when my hands weren’t idle. However, the tone of his messages got more and more frustrated the longer they went unanswered.

  Instead of calling him back, I gathered a few things I would need to spend a couple of days at his house and headed over to the nice residential neighborhood in the Highlands. It was past the time he usually fed Hollyn and got her ready for bed, so I stopped at one of the dessert bars that popped up downtown while I was occupied and grabbed something sweet so I didn’t show up empty-handed. Hopefully, red velvet cake was enough to get me inside since it was Hyde’s favorite.

  I parked my car on the street in front of his house, shivering the entire way to the door because the temperature felt like it suddenly dropped twenty degrees. It was going to snow soon. I could practically smell it in the air.

  I knocked on the door, wondering what I should do if he flat out didn’t answer it. We weren’t exactly at the ‘exchange keys’ part of our relationship. Hell, I wasn’t even sure if we were at the stage where we’d agreed to be exclusive. I wasn’t sure I was ready to admit that he was back to being the most important person in my life. I was terrified to let that happen again, so I knew all the uncertainty came from my end. I used to be so confident in how I felt about him. I always knew he held my heart in his hands. Even when he crushed it. It was odd to be leery of my feelings while he seemed so sure of his. The reversal of roles was taking some getting used to.

  Hyde eventually opened the door. His short hair was damp, and all he had on were those sinfully sexy sweatpants that hung low on his hips and showed off his ripped abs and even the nearly- impossible-to-get indent of muscle above his hips. His nearly perfect face did most of the heavy lifting, but his body was no joke either. He actually looked a lot healthier and more filled out now that he was home.

  He looked at me with a lifted eyebrow, his gaze going to the decorated dessert box in my hand.

  “I brought you something sweet.” I was still shivering because of the cold, but Hyde didn’t look like he was in any hurry to let me inside.

  “I tried to call you today. How come you didn’t answer?” His voice was gruff, and his green eyes narrowed to jade slits.

  I poked at the bag near my feet with the toe of my sneaker. “I worked through the night and then slept all day, so I would be free to spend the next few days with you and Hollyn. I was so tired I slept through your calls. But my phone was on and charged. I saw your messages as soon as I woke up.” I frowned at him. “Are you going to
let me in? It’s cold out here.”

  He stepped back immediately and waved me in. He reached past me to grab the bag off the ground and followed me silently into the kitchen. I put the cake box on the counter and squared off against him. We hadn’t seen each other in nearly a week. There were better things we could be doing than arguing, but we would get nowhere if we didn’t communicate with each other. Before, when he got mad at me, I would hound him to death and make a general nuisance of myself until he had no option other than to give in to me. Nowadays, I didn’t rely on my persistence or my cuteness to win an argument. I tried to put myself in others’ shoes and see all sides of an issue. My temper could be explosive and dangerous because of how the chemicals in my brain reacted to aggression, but I had a long fuse, so it took a while to blow.

  “When I’m working on something or facing a deadline, I give my entire focus to that project. I work hard and put in long hours, so the rest of my life has to wait until I’m ready to emerge. It’s how I’ve always been, Hyde. If you’re expecting someone to be at your beck and call whenever, that isn’t me. I’m also not someone who can keep your house clean and make sure everything runs on a tight schedule. I am sorry I missed your calls; I can tell you’re upset, but I was exhausted. I worked extra hard the last couple of days so I could give you and Hollyn my undivided attention. I really was thinking about you, about being with you, even if it doesn’t seem like it.”

  Hyde rubbed both of his hands over his short, dark hair as he sucked in a harsh breath. He blinked at me a couple of times, then cocked his head to the side and quietly said, “Being so focused on something, staying up all night, it worries me, Remy. I’m not going to lie to you. I remember what it was like when you were obsessed with me, and this feels the same. I’m not upset you missed my calls. I’m upset you worked yourself to the point of exhaustion and were so tired you couldn’t even hear the phone ring.”

  I bristled immediately but clamped down on the stirrings of anger in my belly. He did have a bit of a point, but I didn’t think it was fair to compare the two things. My fixation on him ebbed and flowed based on his reaction to me. My commitment to work came and went in a flash with each project. But my feelings for him remained unchanged, and was powerful enough to cling to my heart for nearly a lifetime. They weren’t even in the same category.

  “I don’t need you to clean my house. I don’t need you to keep track of my schedule. I don’t need you to answer the phone every single time I call. I don’t even need you to be as excited to see me as you used to be, Remy. What I do need to know is that you’re okay, and if you’re not, be honest with me about it. I need to know how to tell the difference between you just being you and symptoms we both need to be concerned about. I need to know when it’s time to worry.” He sounded so sincere and earnest, it was hard to find fault with his argument.

  I sighed heavily and continued to watch him with a thoughtful gaze. “Sometimes, it’s hard to distinguish between the two.” Because even without the BPD, I was quirky and slightly eccentric. I had a big personality and tended to go over the top even when I was at my best. “The only way to do that is to spend as much time around me as possible. Zowen can tell. My mom can tell. Sometimes my dad can differentiate; other times, he can’t. That’s actually how I found out my mom was the one who asked you to leave. He thought I was sad because of my illness, not just sad because life was particularly difficult at the moment. It’s a learned skill. But you can’t decide that every behavior I have that you don’t like is somehow tied back to my BPD. That’s not fair, and whatever we’re trying to have with each other won’t last long if you can’t handle me being me. I don’t mind you asking if I’m okay because I know it comes from a place of concern. I know you care about me. I worry about you, too, you know.”

  He grunted and dragged a hand over his face. He had a healthy dusting of stubble across his chin and jaw, which gave him a slightly sinister look. His voice was still low and rough when he spoke, “How does that work as we go forward, Remy? I get that you have to work and you make your own hours and rules. But what if we live together in the future? What about Hollyn? How does she understand that you suddenly don’t have time for her because you have to work? If you shut everyone out, that’s going to include her, and I can’t let her get hurt like that.”

  I froze and felt my breath rush out of me as the reality of what he just said hit me. Maybe because I refused to think beyond the current day we were living, I didn’t consider what might happen if our lives merged together. My biggest fear was hurting either one of them, and that was exactly what would happen if I stayed my current course.

  “I’ve been on my own for a long time, Hyde. I’ve figured out how to live my best life on my own terms, and I do it in a way that makes me happy. I haven’t had to consider anyone else in ages. You’re right. I can’t shut out the rest of the world when you and Hollyn are in it. That isn’t fair to either one of you. I’m sorry I didn’t see that sooner. For me, the future is always kind of hazy. I prefer to be in the moment, but you can’t do that when there’s a child in the mix. I can’t promise I’ll adjust all my bad work habits immediately, but I can work on building a better balance. You need to be patient with me. I can’t switch gears as quickly as others. Don’t leave me out in the cold when I come to you, Hyde. I don’t like it.”

  Switching up the way I worked was something I’d have to talk to my therapist about. It was something I would have to ease into because my brain was comfortable with the system I already had set up. Prioritizing family and other responsibilities at the same time was a big task. My mind wasn’t trained to work that way. I might fail at the first go-round. The only people I would ever rock the boat this drastically for were Hyde and Hollyn.

  Hyde made his way to where I was standing and wrapped his arms around me. It was the best back-hug ever. It was so nice to be instantly enveloped in warmth and what felt like understanding.

  “I love that you put yourself first, Remy. Don’t stop doing that. Not for me or anyone else. I just want you to maybe consider putting me and Hollyn second. We’ll wait patiently while you figure it out. But you have to promise to be as patient with me as I learn how to navigate your heart and mind. The road to the center of you isn’t straight or narrow.”

  I laughed because he wasn’t wrong. I tapped on the cake box with a fingernail. “Now that the boring, grown-up part of the relationship has been handled, do you want something sweet?”

  I was untying the satin ribbon that wrapped around the box when I was suddenly lifted off my feet and swung up into a pair of muscular arms. I never thought I would be the type to swoon at being princess carried to the bedroom, but my heart was doing summersaults, and I immediately got goosebumps when Hyde growled into my ear, “I do want something sweet, but it isn’t the damn cake.”

  Hyde

  I DROPPED REMY on the bed and watched as she bounced slightly.

  Her curls dropped over her forehead as she gave me a wide-eyed look of surprise from underneath them. I felt bad about waiting a heartbeat too long to let her in my house. I also felt bad about getting mad at her without properly explaining why I was upset in the first place. I was the one who forced my way back into her life and made myself comfortable there. It made sense she needed some time to adjust not only to me but also to Hollyn. It wasn’t very fair to ask her to immediately adjust how she operated just because I was used to being the most important thing in her life. It wasn’t cool to expect her to shift her priorities when she’d figured out a way to thrive on her own after I left. I had to admit to being a touch resentful of the fact she was better off without me than I was with her. Remy figured out how to live while I’d been gone, while I’d just struggled to build a life, just like my dad said.

  I reached out with a finger to brush her pale hair away from her face. I rubbed my thumb over the arch of her eyebrow and smiled down at her. Maybe I was moving too fast for her because I was in a hurry to make up for lost time and cement mysel
f by her side as something other than her childhood friend. She’d spent the time we were apart trying to forget me, while I spent it remembering every little thing about her and comparing everyone else to her. She said it took her a minute to switch gears, but I was already racing toward the finish line. It would be better for both of us if we figured out how to go the same speed somewhere other than in bed.

  I cupped her small face between my hands and lowered my head to touch my lips to hers. Ever since I’d come home, I was moving at warp speed. I was in such a rush to make sure I could provide everything Hollyn needed, that I skipped the stage to properly grieve the loss of her mother without it being colored by resentment and anger. Even taking Remy to bed was hurried and often a race to the finish line. I wanted to make up for lost time, and these days I never knew when we might be interrupted by the baby or any other part of life that intruded. It was entirely possible I swept Remy up in the hurricane of my life without offering her any protection from the storm.

  I kissed her softly, slowly. Instead of trying my best to devour her and take as much of her in as possible, I wanted to savor her. I wanted to use the years of friendship and fondness, decades of unrequited, untenable love, to show her how well I knew her. I wanted to prove I could meet her needs, and that I had the patience to wait for her to learn how to love me again.

  I kept the kiss feather-light; our lips barely touched. I used my thumbs to stroke her soft cheeks and felt them heat up the longer our mouths touched. Her breath was sweet like maybe she already had a taste of the frosting from the cake. Every time it whispered over my parted lips, my tongue twitched, longing for a taste. I tilted her head back and pressed my lips to hers with more force, but still asking, not demanding, that she let me in. It would serve me right if she decided to torture me and keep me out in the cold like I did to her. I deserved a taste of my own medicine. Fortunately, Remy wasn’t petty.