“I didn’t concern myself with anything that brought me down,” I confessed. “I was arrogant.”

I stopped and smirked at her. “Well, more arrogant than I am now,” I added. “I was self-serving and selfish.”

The waiter stopped and set down the drinks, leaving just as quietly when neither of us looked at him.

I raised my eyes, meeting hers. “When I was nineteen I got a girl pregnant.” I swallowed the lump, remembering that day I’d wished so many times I could go back and redo. “She wasn’t even really my girlfriend,” I added. “It was new, and it was casual, and then all of a sudden my connection to her was permanent.”

Easton’s expression was emotionless as she listened.

“And you know what?” I continued. “I still didn’t change. I threw money at her so she’d go away, and after a year or so, she married someone else.”

I looked away, feeling ashamed. “A great guy who wanted her even though she had another man’s kid, a guy who was there for my son.”

My throat tightened, and I forced my breathing to slow. I’d worked very hard over the years not to think about Christian waking up in the middle of the night or having stories read to him by someone else. Times when he was small and helpless and needed me and I was nowhere around.

I was never there.

“I thought I was a man.” I spoke quietly. “I wasn’t even close.”

She dropped her eyes, looking saddened, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Did she think less of me now?

Of course she did.

“When I was twenty-two,” I went on, “I was in my last semester of college and ready to be done. I had to take this social science course to fulfill a requirement. I forget what it was called,” I told her, “but I remember, very well, arguing with the professor one day. He was giving us some prison statistics. Percentages of the inmates’ races, percentages of repeat offenders…”

I tipped back the drink, finishing it off, setting the glass down, and clearing my throat.

“Everyone thought that the inequalities in prison culture were shocking, but I didn’t care. It didn’t seem like a big deal.”

A smile escaped me as I remembered that day. “The professor got in my face and told me to look harder.” I looked at her point-blank, imitating his deep, gruffly voice. “ ‘Mr. Marek, if you’re not angry, then you’re not paying attention.’ And I shot back with ‘Well, I don’t want to be angry all the time. Ignorance is bliss, and I don’t care about fuckups who got sent to prison for their own mistakes’ and all that bullshit. I thought I was so smart.”

I felt utterly ridiculous, quoting my twenty-two-year-old self. Back when I thought I knew everything.

I continued to explain. “He wanted us to question the how and why, and I couldn’t have cared less. I wanted to make money” – I shrugged my shoulders – “go to parties, and have fun.”

She continued listening, not moving a muscle.

“And then,” I continued. “I remember like it was yesterday. He looked me in the eye, and he said, ‘Tyler, if you’re going to be a burden on the world, then just die now. We don’t need you.’ ”

She blinked, looking a little shocked. “Wow,” she whispered.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “He shut me up. And he made me open my eyes,” I added, remembering the moment my outlook on life changed.

“I was a nobody,” I explained. “Expendable and useless… I was a loser who took and never gave.”

I glanced up, seeing the waiter approach, and waited for him to take the plates away.

“Would you like coffee?” he asked.

I shook my head, waving him off.

“And so” – I looked at her again after he’d gone – “in my last year of college, I finally started studying. I read books about prisons, poverty, religion, war, gangs, economics, even agriculture,” I explained, “and the following fall I went back to school for my graduate degree, because I wanted to make more than just money. I wanted to make a difference and be remembered.”

Her eyes dropped, and a small, thoughtful smile peeked out as if she understood just what I was talking about.

“I realized that if I wanted to effect change,” I told her, “and be a person others could count on, then I needed to start with my own kid. He was two years old at that point and had seen me…” I shook my head. “Very rarely,” I confessed. “Brynne, his mother, didn’t want to have anything to do with me, though.”

I took in a hard breath, the weight of regret making it hard to talk. “She took the money my father sent every month for Christian’s sake, but I’d burned my bridges with her. She told me that our son had a father who loved him already and I’d only confuse him.”

“And you agreed with her,” Easton ascertained.

I nodded. “I was scared off,” I admitted. “I was working hard to contribute to the rest of the world, but when it came to my kid…” I dropped my eyes, shaking my head at how easily I’d talked myself out of his life back then. “I was too afraid of failing.” I raised my eyes, meeting hers. “So I didn’t even try. I saw her husband with my kid, and I didn’t know how the hell I was going to compete with that. I wanted to be in his life, but I’d still just be the weekend daddy.”