The past two weeks had been some of the best times of the past year – two full weeks with the person he cares most about, his son Liam. Tag normally only got to see his son for a weekend at a time and the occasional holiday. He was fortunate that he was on good enough terms with Chelsea that he was allowed to visit whenever he pleased, but it wasn’t the same as getting some one-on-one time. And never before had he gotten two full weeks of sole care.

Which made the ending of those two weeks all the more heartbreaking as he arrived to Chelsea’s apartment with Liam and the bags to drop him off. But the worst news for him was yet to come.

Chelsea opened the door with a glowing smile as she took Liam and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. “Come in,” she gestured. Tag stepped into the apartment as Chelsea’s boyfriend Mike took the bags from him.

“Afternoon Tag, hope Liam here wasn’t too much trouble for you the past two weeks,” Mike said with the friendliest of smiles. God, Tag hated that guy. Of course he wasn’t any trouble, he was his son.

“No, no trouble at all,” Tag insisted.

“Can you…?” Chelsea started to Mike. He nodded as he took the child and carried him off to his room. “Tag, we need to talk.”

“What’s up?”

“Mike and I eloped.”

His whole world froze at that moment. It wasn’t that he felt ownership of Chelsea. They weren’t in a relationship, and he knew there was little change of finding himself in one. But he loved her, and it was never so obvious to him how much he loved her until those words came out of her mouth. He didn’t need to be dating her or sleeping with her – the two of them raising Liam as independent single parents was the relationship he fell in love with her in, and Mike had been screwing with that formula for a while and now just took a massive s**t on it all.

She had someone now, someone to put as her ICE contact while he still listed her. She had someone to take Liam to the events she had to miss, the ones that Tag would never be told of. He was being nudged out of the family he had created with her, and the threat to it all was here to stay.

“Oh,” was all he could mutter out.

“Are you okay?” she asked. His face was growing pale in shock, he could feel it, but worked to keep some composure.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m just surprised,” he started before pushing all of his emotions aside and putting on the disguise of happiness. “Congratulations! I’m so happy for you, Mike is a great guy.” Lies, lies, and a huge ******** lie. The b*****d. “I really should be getting back to work now, have a lot of work to make up for.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, really, I just have work to do,” Tag insisted as he backed out of the door. “Look, I’ll call you later. Congratulations again.” He waved goodbye as he shut the door and hurried off the nearest bar to drown his sorrows in a glass of scotch.