The Harder You Fall (Rixon Raiders 3)

Then we’d all been at Felicity’s and I’d caved. Cornering Mya in the bathroom had been a jerk move, but I just needed to talk to her, to touch her, to feel something—anything—from her. A small sign we could find our way back to each other.

“Can I sit?” Dad’s deep voice pulled me from my thoughts, but he didn’t wait for my reply as he dropped down beside me. “She’s asleep. One minute I was talking, the next...”

“The doctors said that’s to be expected in the early days.”

“I know… I know… it’s just… Jesus, it’s hard,” he breathed. “I’ve never been more terrified than I was holding your mother, covered in blood—”

“Don’t, Dad, please don’t.” I remembered every second of that night. The blood was imprinted on my soul.

Would be for a very long time.

“I swear my whole life flashed before my eyes,” he went on, and I realized it was the first time he’d wanted to talk, really talk, about what had happened.

I guess I just didn’t expect he’d want to talk to me about it.

“All the mistakes, the way I’ve treated you both.”

“If this is the part where you apologize and we become a shiny happy family, you’re about ten years too late,” I said with a resigned sigh. I couldn’t even find it in me to be angry anymore. I was too exhausted. Like I’d finally woken up from a month-long bad dream.

In some ways, I guess I had.

“You think I don’t know that? The damage is done; between us at least,” he trailed off, silence stretching out before us. “I can’t change the past, Son. But I can change the future. I can try to change who I am.”

I gave him a sideways glance, raising a brow. “Actions speak louder than words.”

“I know they do.” He let out a shaky breath, as if he was purging his need to control everything. Transforming right in

front of my eyes. “I’m going to make this right, Asher. Your mother has always been there, right by my side; the dutiful, loving wife. When I think of how I’ve treated her… treated you both…”

“Dad,” I warned, grinding my teeth together.

I didn’t want to do this. Not now.

Not ever.

Did I want him to be there for Mom and make things right? One-hundred percent. But I didn’t want to listen to his bullshit excuses about why he’d been such a cold-hearted bastard most of my life.

“I’m sorry. I just…” He exhaled. “They say it takes losing everything to realize what you had, and, well, almost losing your mother, it was like something shifted inside me, Asher. Something fundamental.”

Didn’t I know it?

I’d lost Mya, let her slip through my fingers.

And now when I needed to fight for her, I wasn’t sure how to do it.

Actions speak louder than words. The thought hit me like a wrecking ball and I blurted out, “Will you be okay sitting with Mom for a while? There’s something I have to go take care of.”

His eyes narrowed a fraction, but not in their usual cold, assessing way. “Do I even need to ask where you’re going?”

“You can ask, but you won’t like the answer.” Standing up, I loomed over him. “You said almost losing Mom shifted something inside you. Well, it changed me too, Dad. And do you know what? Life is too short. It’s too fucking short to worry about what people think or what they might say if you go against the grain.

“I love Mya. I love her so much. And I pushed her away. I pushed her away because I thought it was what I should do; what you and everyone else thought I should do. But screw that. Mya is a good person. So much better than you or me. She’s strong and brave and beautiful on the inside and out, and I’m so lucky to have called her mine.” And such a fucking idiot for ever pushing her away.

Dad stared up at me, his lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line. This was usually the part where he went off at me about responsibility and reputation and all the other bullshit rules he’d lived his life by. But I realized now, this wasn’t his life.

It was mine.

“What?” I said, disarmed at his silence. “Don’t you have anything to say?”