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But there he was, reading.
"What book is that?" she asked, shaking her head, looking over at me.
I didn't have to look to know.
It was the same book it would always be.
The same book that would somehow haunt him forever.
"'Hatchet,'" I supplied, giving her a squeeze.
"Of course it is," she said, rolling her eyes at herself. "Why didn't I think of that? I was going for all the sci-fi and fantasy adventure stuff. Of course a boy his age would be into the surviving on your own in a dangerous wilderness thing."
"Mom," Luna's soft, sing-song voice called, making us both turn to see her walking in from outside, a book tucked under her arm. She was wearing one of Reese's sweaters, light blue, and almost dragging on the ground.
"Yeah, honey?" Reese asked, not moving out of my arms.
"She's too stupid to live!"
"Hey," I went to scold, never having let the kids use that particular word, as my own mother had never let us at their ages either.
"The heroine in the book," Reese informed me, shaking her head. "The heroine is 'too stupid to live.' It's a book term."
"And every time they back her into a corner, suddenly she has some new magical power that gets her out? What kind of character development is that?" she asked mostly herself as she rolled her eyes and moved off into the kitchen.
When Reese turned back to me, her smile was one of pure joy.
"What?"
"I have two readers!" she declared.
"Yeah, about that..." I started.
"About what?" she asked, head ducked to the side.
See, I had been fucking good. Over a goddamn decade I had kept the secret, wanting to tell her the truth on our tenth wedding anniversary.
But this moment was too good.
It was time that she knew that every single book she ever mentioned I would like reading - over one-hundred and ten over the past twelve years - I had bought. And read. And enjoyed. In secret.
"You actually have three readers..."
