What the hell was I supposed to say to that? I would never know what my life would have been like had he stuck around, and honestly, I didn’t want to know. I was happy where I was, proud of what I’d been able to accomplish as a single mom. My hands were shaking in his as I thought about what to say back, how to follow that up. Before I could form a coherent thought, headlights appeared at the end of the driveway.
We both looked up, squinting our eyes at the approaching lights.
“Who is that?” Zach asked, not letting go of my hands.
As the car got closer, I realized it wasn’t a car at all, but a truck. A big black pick-up truck.
Brody.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I pulled my hands back quickly as the truck screeched to a stop. I’d barely made my way to the end of the porch when Brody came walking purposefully up the steps. “What’s going on?” he questioned, looking from me to Zach.
“Nothing, baby. Let’s go inside and talk.” I put my hands on his chest, hoping to slow him down, but he walked right through me.
“Brody Murphy!” Zach grinned as he walked over with his hand out. “Nice to meet you. I’m Zach, Lucy and Piper’s dad.”
The world moved in slow motion as I watched the realization of what Zach had just slurred reach Brody’s brain. His head slowly turned to look down at me. His normally crisp green eyes were filled with anger. Intense, seething anger. I could only imagine what he thought he just saw as his chest heaved under my hand.
I cupped the sides of his face, trying to get him to look at me instead of through me. “Listen to me, this is not what you think it is. Let’s go inside and talk. Please.”
“Don’t leave me hanging, bro.” Zach laughed, motioning toward his still outstretched hand.
Brody was looking at me, but his mind was somewhere else. When Zach laughed, Brody’s eye twitched and that was it. I grabbed a fistful of his sweatshirt and pulled back as hard as I could, but I was too late.
Brody reeled back and swung with his right arm as hard as I’d ever seen anyone hit another person. It happened so fast, Zach didn’t even see it coming. He was still smiling when Brody’s fist connected with his jaw, making the most horrific crunching sound. Zach stumbled back, holding the left side of his face. His hat was askew and he was obviously disoriented and in severe pain, but that didn’t stop Brody from lunging for him again. He grabbed a handful of Zach’s shirt and pulled him forward, hard.
“What the fuck are you doing here, dickhead?” Brody roared through clenched teeth.
“Whoa, whoa!” Zach threw his hands up in front of himself. “Calm down.”
“Fuck you!” Brody snapped, punching Zach even harder than before, this time with his left fist. After another fierce collision, Zach covered his head with his hands, either in pain or self-defense and wobbled his way over to the railing.
“Brody! Brody, stop!” I screamed. I tried wrapping my arms around his core and pulling him off of Zach, but I would’ve had better luck trying to move the Empire State Building. I barely got out of the way when Brody reared back and punched Zach once more, sending him flying over the porch railing and onto the grass down below.
Brody walked over and stood at the railing, glaring down at Zach. Blood droplets fell from his knuckles onto the porch, but it didn’t seem to phase him one bit.
“I’ll ask you again. What the fuck are you doing here?”
After he rolled around in the grass for a minute, Zach sat up and held each side of his jaw, which I was sure was broken—probably in more than one place. “I came to talk to Kacie about the girls,” he mumbled, opening his mouth as little as possible.
“The girls? You have no goddamn business discussing anything about those girls.”
“The fuck I don’t. I’m their father.”
Brody’s eyes grew wide and I thought he might jump the railing and kill Zach right there on the lawn. “Their father? What the fuck do you know about being their father? I’m their father! You’re a deadbeat sperm donor—Kacie’s big fucking mistake in life. The hell if I’m going to let her make the same mistake twice. Now, get the hell out of here.”
Zach narrowed his eyes at me. “He doesn’t know, does he?”
“Know what?” Brody growled.
I sighed, pulling my shaking hands up to my face. Alexa was right, I should’ve told him a long time ago. This was so much worse than I ever imagined it could be. My stomach cramped like I was going to throw up.
“Know what?” he roared again, causing me to flinch.
“Know what?” Kacie flinched as I demanded an answer for the second time.
“We work at the hospital together,” Zach said through clenched teeth, still holding on to the side of his head.
“You what?” I yelled at Kacie, pretending it was her that told me and not Zach.
Her hands fell from her face just enough for me to see her tear-filled eyes. “We work together.” She pulled her hands all the way down and reached for me, but I stepped back. “But not really. He’s an EMT, so we don’t see each other every day, just occasionally. I had no idea he worked there, Brody. I saw him my first day and-”
“Your first day?” I shouted. “That was weeks ago!”
What. The. Fuck.
The front door to the house flew open and Sophia stepped out onto the porch. “What’s going on out here? I can hear yelling all the way from my bedroom.” Her eyes panned the front yard and stopped suddenly on Zach. “What are you doing here?”
Zach didn’t answer her; he just looked down at his lap.
“Brody, let me explain.” Kacie ignored her mom as her chin trembled and tears poured from her eyes.
Normally when I saw Kacie cry, I would walk through walls of fire to make her stop, but right now I just couldn’t. She put those damn walls up and needed to get out from behind them on her own.
I was seething.
“Wait,” Zach interrupted. “Before you do, I’m gonna go.”
“I would say that’s a good idea.” Sophia walked to the edge of the porch and crossed her arms across her chest.
He wiped some blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, reached over to grab his hat, and stood up slowly. I stared a hole through him as he walked to his truck, thankful that he was at least smart enough not to say a word to me or Kacie.
When he opened his driver’s door, Kacie called after him, “Zach! Wait!” She looked from him to me. “He’s drunk, Brody. He can’t drive.”
“He drove himself over here, didn’t he? He can drive his ass home,” I snapped.
“I had no idea he was coming. He just showed up here,” she defended. “Please, let me just drive him home, and then we can talk and I’ll tell you everything.”
“Drive him home?” I pointed toward Zach. “Not a chance in hell.”
“Please. You can follow us and then give me a ride back,” she begged.
I sighed and ran my hands through my hair in frustration. “Fine. There’s no fucking way he’s getting in a car with you, though. You drive his car; he rides with me.”
She opened her mouth to argue and I cut her off. “That’s the only option, Kacie.”