"I'm not letting you take him away." Zacky said, the second we were in my office.
"In case it escaped your attention, I live in this town. Zachary was born and is being raise here. I'm not taking him anywhere."I said.
Zacky looked at me, just staring.
"Who the hell are you?" He asked.
"I'm Aryn. The same person I was four years ago. I just have a son now."I said, looking at him.
"No. The Aryn I knew four years ago, told me everything. She never kept secrets from me and she definitely wouldn't have kept something this important from me." Zacky said coldly.
"Yeah, well, you're not the person I thought you were either. I never would've thought you would break up with me for wanting you to go and live your dream." I said roughly, my eyes narrowing at the memory.
"You would have never told me, would you?" He asked.
I was quiet for a moment.
"I was going to tell you the day you found out you were going on tour. But, surprise surprise, you broke up with me instead." I said sarcastically.
"Why didn't you say anything?!" Zacky yelled.
"Zacky, we were nineteen. You were going on tour and I was going to school. I couldn't go with you. What good would it have done for me to tell you?" I asked.
"it doesn't matter if I was going on tour, or to the moon. I have a kid I never knew existed! I had every right to know! He's mine too!"Zacky yelled.
"Well you lost that right when you broke up with me and then fucked another girl!" I screamed.
The room went completely quiet.
"What?" Zacky asked.
"I was going to tell you. After you left me there, crying and broken, I started thinking. You did havea right to know. I went to look for you cause you wouldn't answer my calls and when I got to your house, I saw Casey's car in your driveway. I went around the back and I saw you fucking her on the couch. We had just broken up and you were already fucking someone else. So I didn't say anything. I let you leave because I thought that's what was best for my baby." I said.
"You saw that?" Zacky asked, sounding hurt.
"It doesn't matter. I did what was best for my son." I said.
"What's best for our son, is to have both parents in his life. I don't care what I was doing. You know me. I wouldn't have run away from my responsibility. I would have stood by you." Zacky said firmly.
"Well, it's too late for that. I made my decision and in my opinion, I made the right choice. If you want to talk about the future and stop reminiscing about the past, then talk."I said shortly.
"I want to be in his life. I don't want to miss anything else. I missed his first words, his first steps, everything. I'm not wasting anymore time." He said.
"I can't say I'm not happy to hear that."I admitted.
"I want to spend as much time with him as possible."Zacky said, looking at me.
"What about when you go back on tour?" I asked. Zacky went silent.
"He can come with me." He said.
"If you think you're taking my son away for months at a time so he can be surrounded by whores, and booze and drugs, you've completely lost your mind." I said firmly.
"i didn't mean I was going to take him away from you. You could always come too." Zacky said quietly.
I laughed at that.
"Yeah, right. Cause you're ex girlfriend, her kid and boyfriend tagging along is totally normal." I said with a chuckle.
"Who the fuck said he could come?" Zacky seethed.
I looked at him and his face was contorted in anger.
"Don't you dare. Sphinx has been in our sons life since he was two years old. He has always been there for us. Don't come in here and disrespect him. You don't even know him." I said angrily.
"You didn't give me the chance to be there for you! I didn't even know about him!" He yelled.
I took in a deep breath to calm myself down.
Screaming at each other wasn't going to solve anything.
"Bottom line, you don't have to like Sphinx. But you will respect him. Zachary loves him and he needs him too. It's great that you care about our son already, but you have to understand that he is still very little. He needs some sort of stability and I've always tried my hardest to give him that. I'm not trying to keep you or the guys away from him. Like you said, it's you right to be there for him too. But so does Sphinx." I said.
It was quiet for a minute.
"I'm sorry. It's just all overwhelming. Finding out I have a son and then finding out that some other guy has been helping raise him too. It hit a nerv." Zacky said.
"He's a great man. I wouldn't let him near Zachary if he wasn't. And he loves our son, Zacky." I said softly.
He nodded his head in understanding.
"Is what you two have, better than us?" He asked, looking me in the eyes.
