It's strained, their relationship, and that makes him feel like shit. She's basically his best friend. And he'd fled from her and his stolen-sperm-sample-baby like he wouldn't forgive her anything. (And how messed up was that?)
He worries about her. The baby (oh god) is an abstract concept. It (she) had been a tiny scrap of life wrapped up in her mom's arms. It could have been a gun, if he hadn't known better.
He knew better.
It was why he'd run: he wasn't right for this.
Seduction. Murder. Lacrosse. He knew what he wasn't, and he wasn't a father.
It was with regret that he tossed away his dreams of being Uncle Sterling (a strong, fancy gentleman type name. The name of a hellion retired to the country. The name of someone that could separate enough to keep from coming apart at the seams.)
She wanted him to be a father. He could see it.
She'd presented the baby like a cure all and hadn't realized how she'd broken him.
He'd wanted to scream, but he'd left instead. He needed time to get his head on straight.
He shouldn't have been surprised he'd fallen into debauchery, but he was (he always was). Sex, pain, drugs, and alcohol were the usual ones he would blame when dissimulating. But when it was just in his head he knew the truth: he wasn't screwed together quite right.
It was why the kids at boarding school had either excluded him or bullied him. There was something different about him. Something that he'd learned to cover up with charm.
But there was no way he trusted himself with a baby. Not when his coping strategy involved an orgy with possibly disease-ridden sex workers in the ass end of nowhere.
The call from Mother was nearly a relief. He was ready to move on to the next stage of coping for a secret agent: cathartic killing.
And maybe he was ready to forgive Her. (He hoped he was.) Because he missed the sight of her stupid (wonderful) face.