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The speedometer was creeping past eighty, and while I should have said something to Adrian, I really wanted him to push it even more. I wanted to be home with Elias. Ever since I spoke to him the night before, I had been on edge wanting to get on the road and back to him.
“I’ll get you there, sweetheart,” Adrian said, reaching across the armrest to take my hand.
I gave an imperious sniff, totally nonchalant. “I didn’t say anything.”
He scoffed, sounding absolutely fond, and he brought my hand up to kiss across my knuckles. He did it all the time…and it gave me butterflies each and every time he did it. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, as if he wasn’t turning my stomach into a kaleidoscope of butterflies, “because I’m thinking about the same thing.” Adrian glanced at me. “Seeing Elias again.”
My heart fluttered in a way that should have been embarrassing. If any other man talked about how excited he was to see my son, I’d question his motives…but I knew Adrian was sincere. He really cared about Elias. And I knew Elias would be excited to see him, too.
What I didn’t know was what exactly would happen after that. We still hadn’t quite talked about next steps. Would we go back to Louisiana? Would Adrian come with us? Would he want us to come to DC with him? Everything was up in the air for the moment.
The lack of talking scared me a little. What were we going to tell Elias? I had never lied to him before about anything, and I didn’t plan to start now…but I wasn’t sure what exactly to tell him. That his mother was in the process of “falling in love”? That wouldn’t make sense to an eight-year-old, no matter how mature he might be.
“What’s on your mind, sweetheart?” Adrian asked. “I can see you overthinking from here.”
I rolled my eyes but didn’t rise to his bait. “I’m thinking about Elias,” I admitted. “What are we going to say to him?”
“About what?” Adrian asked. “The mission? We really shouldn’t talk about it now that it’s a legal matter.”
“No, not the mission,” I said. “About me and you.”
“Oh,” he breathed out. “Well, I don’t want to pretend I don’t have feelings for you, if that’s what you mean.”
I let out a breath of relief. “So, no lying?” I asked, hating myself a little for needing to be sure. “We’re just going to tell him that we’re together? Simple as that?”
Adrian nodded and played his thumb over my knuckles again. “Simple as that,” he echoed.
“Mama!” The cry, like a shot, hit me with full force, and I was running toward the sound of my boy as soon as I could fling myself from the car. I caught him as he threw himself at me. “Mama, you’re back,” he wept, holding onto me like I would disappear if he didn’t. “You came back.”
I rocked him, peppering the crown of his head with kisses and breathing in his scent. “Of course, I came back,” I said. “Adrian promised you he’d bring me home, didn’t he?” Elias, still sobbing, nodded.
“I missed you, Mama.”
“I missed you too, sakharok.”
When I let Elias go, I thought we might walk into the house together. Instead, I watched him take off and leap into Adrian’s arms. “Hey, bud,” he said, patting at him a little stiffly. He wasn’t used to getting hugs yet, but that would change. Elias had always been a hugger, and I would not deter him from that for one minute.
“Thank you for bringing back my mom,” I heard Elias say with his face buried in Adrian’s neck.
“I keep my promises,” he said. “As much as I am able to, anyway.”
Elias accepted this answer, and he grabbed both of our hands to take us into the house. Owen and Sam doled out their hugs to us both. Owen clapped Adrian on the shoulder. “You got it done, man. You got the one responsible for Roger and Cuddy. That’s…huge.”
Adrian nodded, but there was something…off. “You know, it’s funny,” he said.
“What’s funny?”
“I don’t think I actively thought about Cuddy or Roger at any point when I was facing down Hayes. It was like they disappeared from my head. Why do you think that is?”
I patted his arm. “Your brain was trying to keep you focused on the task at hand,” I said. “It knew how important the mission was to you, and now it’s done.”
He smiled. “Onto the next adventure,” he said, tipping his head in my direction.
“What does that mean?” We both looked at Elias staring at us like we were a new breed of fish that scientists have just discovered. “What adventure?” He looked at me, panicked. “Mama, I can’t leave. They have all these infusions, which kind of suck, but they’re working. I can?—”
“Whoa,” I said, putting my hands on his shoulders. “Adrian was just joking around, okay, sakharok? We’ll explain everything to everyone as soon as we can.”
In the kitchen, Elias sat at the table and stared at me like he’d never laid eyes on me before. “What’s on your mind?” I asked him.
