Re: log; marina & russ
"He doesn't fucking know that," Russ was too tired, bloodshot-rumpled to give a shit where she'd been, with whom and whether she'd waltzed back in looking like a bad day and late night both at the same time. The words were carved, pointed. Russ wasn't barreling toward a fight for the hot-blooded love of the taste of spite on his tongue, he'd forgotten what it felt like, childhood misery and smashed cloud-built hope but he'd seen Nathan's face show all the raw anguish of a kid who'd been handed a stranger and told they would do. "He doesn't fucking know me yet. The kid lost it when you didn't come back."
He palmed his hand over the sandpaper of his jaw, the gaze shards of flint above his fingers. And fuck her, if she made it about past decisions. Marina spun history with a flick of her fingers, like it was a weathervane she could redirect at whim. "It's three in the fucking morning, Marina. He was fucking scared."
He didn't claim Nathan, he didn't discard him. The fact of parenthood was now printed on papers from a far-away DNA center and court, stamped out in genetic hallmark in big blue eyes and a temper. "You didn't ask me for anything, you walked in, told the kid to sit and walked out. I wanted to see him, I didn't want to call CPS to tell them his mother had fucking left him."