Page 127 of Stealing You

Dad doesn’t say “Oh, I’m good.” No, he sends me the finger. “Quit asking me that. I’ve helped with the boys for the past three years during the season. Just assume I’m good unless I tell you otherwise.”

I hold my hands up in defense. “Geez, okay. Consider that my last attempt of letting you not have practically nine months of travel.”

“Thank god,” he grumbles as he stands up from the barstool. “I will, however, be taking this weekend off since the boys will be with Callie and Will.”

“Oh, you mean, I actually get the weekend alone with my wife?” I send him a snarky smile. “Thank god.”

“Keep the attitude up and maybe I’ll decide to pop by randomly.”

“Do it at your own risk, old man.”

I get another bird sent my way, but there’s always ahappy for mesmile that comes with it.

Just as quickly as the door closes, I barely get the frosting on Isaac’s cinnamon rolls before it opens again.

“Dad, we’re back!” Declan hollers as he walks in. Now, with Declan being older, it’s taken him a bit of time to heal from his loss, but within the past year, it’s been amazing to see him come out of his shell.

Jensen and I both practically had to swallow our tears the first time he referred to us as his mom and dad.

Stepping to greet them, I always seek out my beautiful wife first. I give Jensen a quick kiss to avoid any gag noises the kids will make. “Hi, baby, how was work?”

Her smile fills my entire chest with warmth. “Great. Dec’s got something really cool to show you.”

“It’s really not that cool.” Declan slides onto one of the barstools. “I think I could do it better.”

“I think I should be the judge of that. What is it?”

Jensen’s hand touches my arm, then hands me her iPad. “He knows how to pull it up. Where’s Isaac?”

“Upstairs trying to figure out how to sneak Dottie into Callie and Will’s place.”

Jensen nods slowly. “Ay, okay, I’ll go take care of that.”

I dare another quick kiss, then turn to go take the other stool next to Declan. “Okay, show me.”

Dec spins the stool back and forth. While his hair is darker than his brother’s, he has the same piercing blue eyes, except right now I can see the nerves showing through them. “It’s really nothing, I?—’

“Hey, Dec.” I place my hand on his shoulder, stilling his anxious movement. “It could be the alphabet—out of order—with just simple lines, and I’m still going to want to look at it.”

Declan’s lips fold together, and for a moment, I think I might have to give a lame pep talk, but he takes Jensen’s iPad and pulls up what he’s been working on.

“Okay, I think it might need to be cleaned up a bit, but you know how Mom has that tattoo of the hands linked together with a string?”

I nod. I am very aware of every tattoo on that woman’s body.

“Well, I tried to copy it at first, but then it sort of morphed into something a little different.”

Spinning the screen around, Declan shows me a drawing of four hands in line art, all reaching toward each other and a red string looping them all together.

“It’s all our hands. Yours and Mom’s, then mine and Isaac’s with the string looping through. But what’s really cool is that Idid it as an infinite line, so there’re no breaks. Each of our hands links to each other in the circle.”

I’m not going to cry. I’m going to hold it together.

“Dec, this is amazing.”

“I wanna see! I wanna see!” Isaac yells running back into the kitchen with Jensen and Dottie right behind him.

I pull Issac into my lap while Declan shows him all four of our hands linked together. Jensen comes up behind me and places a hand to my back.

“Holding up good, honey?” she whispers.

Tilting my head back, I meet her eyes. “I couldn’t be better, Jen.”