Merton was unlocking the door, when Tommy pushed him against the hearse. He held one hand around Merton's throat and one flat against his chest. "What the hell did you say in there?"
Merton choked before saying, "What, now you care? Max doesn't need you. I thought he did but, he doesn't."
Tommy's eyes began to glow yellow, "Who is Max?"
"He's your son, Tommy. You have a son."
Tommy let go of Merton and backed away from him, confusion flooding his face. "Is this some sort of trick to get me to come back home?"
"No. He's why I came here tonight."
"You're lying," Tommy growled.
"Why would I lie to you, Tommy?" Merton said as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, pulled up a picture of Max with his mother and showed it to him. "That's your son."
Tommy looked at the picture in disbelief. He stared at a young boy that looked like eerily like him. "How…"
"He's 6 years old. He's super smart. Absolutely loves comic books and superheroes. He's a good kid but, he's got a lot of questions about you and about his powers. Elle and myself have done our best to explain things to him but, he needs a father."
"He's a werewolf?"
Merton gave him an are-you-kidding-me look. "He's young so I don't know the full extent of his powers. I'm not really sure if he's a full-on werewolf since Elle's only human but, he shows most symptoms."
"I can't believe this," Tommy said, cupping his head in his hands.
"I've done my best to be there for Elle and we pretty much raised him together. When he first started asking questions about you, he was so young and we didn't know what to say, so we told him that you were a superhero and you were out saving the world. It was the only thing we knew he would understand," Merton smirked and added, "He started drawing a comic book about you."
A very small smile crept onto Tommy's face.
"I thought you already knew. It's been mentioned on the news a couple of times. We tried our best to keep it quiet but, you know how that goes."
"I don't watch TV much."
"You know what he asked me today? He asked me if I was his father. He said he knew what we had told him about you but, he thought because I was always around I was really his father. It broke my heart, Tommy. I love this kid more than anything in this world. I don't want him to be hurt. He's been in school without any major incidents. But now that he's getting older, I have a feeling things are going to get more complicated. He needs someone who understands what he's going through." Tommy kept staring at the picture on Merton's phone. "I thought if I came here tonight and told you about Max, you would come home and maybe everything would change and be normal. Deep down, no matter what happens, you're still my best friend and I want Max to know how amazing his father is."
Tommy handed the phone back to Merton and gave him a hug. Merton flinched at first, not knowing exactly what he was going to do.
"Elle and I used to argue over baby names. We weren't even ready to have kids but, the conversation would come up and I always joked that if we had a boy I wanted to name him John Elway Dawkins. She used to get so mad about it. So I told her if I couldn't name him that, I always liked the name Max.
"His middle name is Elway."
Tommy laughed, "Max Elway Dawkins. I won't let him down, Merton. I promise."
