“You’re pretty quiet, everything okay?”

I try to ease into the conversation, resting my hand on Samantha’s leg across the console. Maneuvering my truck with one hand, I steer us towards my apartment, a rare night spent at my place while Lennon has a sleepover with Derek at his hotel.

She doesn’t look at me, my gaze seeing nothing but long brown hair as my girl looks out the window of the truck at the dark night sky.

“Babe?” I shake her leg a little, needing for her to talk to me.

Her ex-boyfriend showing up today was a surprise, one that tilted our perfect little world off-kilter, leaving the status of what we were and who I was to Lennon up in the air.

“Sorry, I’m just … digesting.” Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes when she looks over at me in the dim light of the car.

The day had a tenseness about it, an undertone that I couldn’t joke away. Normally, I’d have laughed it off or played some goofy prank, anything to keep from getting too serious about everything. But with Derek dropping in, I knew this was serious. And I seriously didn’t like that guy. What kind of father didn’t see his child for close to six months, and then just waltzes in unexpectedly to claim glory and her love. I saw how hard Samantha worked to parent Lennon, to love her and provide for her.

My fist clenched on the wheel, a streak of anger I didn’t know I had in me overwhelming my system. If that guy would have taken one step out of bounds today, I would have clocked him in the nose.

I give her some space, letting her think during the rest of the ride, until we reach the door to my apartment. As soon as we walk inside, I wrap her in a hug, needing to feel her just as much as I want to comfort her.

“Don’t worry about it, babe. Give it some time. He may be serious in wanting to be a more active part of her life … which is a good thing. Or this may be a fluke, and he could be gone tomorrow.”

I bend down, letting my lips take hers, trying to smooth away the stress I know is vibrating through her.

She breaks off, walking across my apartment. “Don’t worry about it? I can’t just not worry about it, Jake … this is my child we’re talking about.”

I hear the annoyance in her tone. “That’s not what I meant—“

“I get that you don’t have to bother yourself with such serious matters, but this could have some disastrous complications on my life.”

I can feel the wheels of anxiety start to turn in her head, and all I want is to wrap her up in my arms. But instead, I try to reason with her, and let the backhanded comment about me slide off my shoulders. “I know that, babe, but you can’t go into panic mode just yet. Let’s take a breath, calm down.”

She throws her hands up. “Calm down?! Did anyone ever tell you not to tell a woman to calm down? This is my daughter, Jake! He’s threatening to take her away from me, and you’re advice is to breathe! Like some horrible fortune cookie or something.”

“He threatened to take her?” The sentence blindsides me.

Samantha stomps across the apartment, her coat and purse still on. “Yes! He said that because I was gallivanting around with you, that he was going to go to the courts about custody.”

The accusation smacks me in the face, and guilt roils in my gut. So I put her in this position. “He can’t do that, can he?”

She faces me, the look on her face saying that I must be the dumbest son-of-a-bitch alive. “Of course he can. We never had a formal arrangement, had always said we’d work it out between us. But now … now he could make this a legal battle. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, putting her security in jeopardy like that.”

“Putting her security in jeopardy because of what … me? That’s bullshit and you know it, Samantha. I love that little girl.” Now my temper came out to play, reacting like gunpowder to a match as she lit me up.

Her eyes fill with rage, and I know we are only lashing out because of Derek showing up, but we can’t stop.

“Oh come off it, Jake … you told me that you didn’t want to be that girl’s father. You don’t want the responsibility of being in her life, in our lives! I knew from the start that you were just here for a good time, and I should have stuck to that notion.”

My heart burns with fury, and for the first time I know what it feels like when they say love hurts. “That’s fucking bullshit, Samantha! I’m here, I’ve been here. Sure, at the beginning I was a little spooked, but I love you. And I love Lennon. Don’t take this out on me, when all I’m doing is supporting you and trying to help you in any way I can to get through this. Don’t push me away, I love you.”

I’m saddened that I’m saying those words out of anger. Before now, they’ve only been said in perfect situations. In the middle of vineyards, in front of the Lincoln Memorial with the sun setting. But life wasn’t perfect, and God knew we were far from it. This was real. This was the real shit that Samantha was always talking about.

My confession seemed to make her stutter, her hand fisted in her hair as tears blinked in her eyes.

“I should go, I need to be alone tonight. To clear my head. If Derek is serious about this, then we should spend some time apart anyway.”

She crosses the room, and I reach out, my arm catching the softness of her jacket. “Don’t do this, you don’t mean it. I’m going to be here whether he takes things to court, whether you want to run away from me, whether you think that we can’t get through it together. Don’t go.”

Her brown eyes shift, her lip trembles. “I have to go.”

I release her arm, knowing that there is no getting past the blowup tonight. She’s wounded and scared, and I know in this moment that she’s not going to listen to reason. She went from zero to sixty in under a minute flat, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. She’d probably been brewing since the park, since her and Derek sat on that bench and talked. There was no way I could have prevented this.

“I love you, Samantha. And I’ll be right here when you realize that.”

All I get is the slamming of my apartment door.