"I think... I think I was so in love with the idea of saving myself that I didn't realize I was letting myself drown. "

"And now?"

"And now you're my lifeboat."


It was only meant to be a favour. Only meant to be for a few weeks. 

Yet when Stryker Odello finds himself a Daddy for a scarred little boy, he finds the darkness that swamped his life cracking and splits of light shining through.

High functioning alcoholic at best, meeting the needs of the little proved more challenging than he first anticipated. 

Broken and distrustful, getting through to Jamie Sinclair was a hard feat.

Both damaged from the past, hurt and cautious, could they learn to let go and figure out how to love again? 

Or was life's only joy to direct a tragedy?

His Little Boy

Stryker found it funny in the kind of way that held absolutely no humour. /"You wanted to talk? You said that it was urgent?/"

He knew that their definitions of urgent differed greatly. He knew that anything that she had to say would fall into the same smouldering heap of things that he didn't give a shit about.

/"I wanted to talk,/" she confirmed stiffly before her eyes raked over Jamie, who flinched back with a soft whine. /"I wasn't expecting an audience.

He was used to her, yet he doubted anything he had told Jamie about her could have fully prepared him. Taking his hand, squeezing it in what he hoped was a comfort, he shot his mother an exasperated look.

/"He's with me, mother. Anything you wish to say to me can be said in front of him./"

Chapter36