Then Harper names the hospital.
“Okay,” I say softly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “You eat?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
“Good.”
I want to say more, but neither of us are ready for that.
So, I just…drive us to the hospital.
“Thanks, Lainey,” I hear and sit up, shaking the sleep out of my brain and glancing at my watch.
We’ve been here a while, but that’s not a surprise.
These things take time—or at least, that’s what the books say.
Harper isn’t in the seat next to mine. She’s standing beside Faye and a woman with curly brown hair.
A little boy with identical brown curls is standing close to her, his arm wrapped around her thigh, and looking very shy.
She ruffles his hair as she continues to talk to the girls, and eventually he seems to lose interest in the conversation, slipping his arm from around her and wandering over to the table in front of me. It has a bucket of blocks and coloring books and crayons.
He pauses, glances up at me, his little eyes unsure.
“You want to play?” I ask.
A nod.
I nudge the basket toward him. “Have at it, bud.”
He nods again, starts to reach for the blocks then pauses, his eyes coming back to mine again.
My heart thumps hard against my rib cage. “Want to build together?”
He hesitates, gives a third nod, and I slide forward so I can kneel on the floor, reaching into the basket and pulling out a handful of blocks. “I’m going to build a super tall tower,” I say as I start stacking the colorful cubes.
He doesn’t move for a few moments, just watches me.
But eventually, he gets in on the fun, snagging a couple of blocks and starting to build his own tower.
“I’m Leo,” I say quietly.
“Ollie,” he says, so softly I have to strain to hear him over the din of the waiting room.
Except that Ollie sounds an awful lot like Awwie.
Which is fucking adorable.
“Nice to meet you.”
He nods a fourth time as he sets another block on top. “You too.” Which sounds like “Euw too.”
My lips twitch and I continue building, helping him when his tower gets too rickety and collapses. “It’s okay, bud. That happens.” I start snagging blocks from the floor. “And now we get to build something new.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then asks, “We?”
“Yeah, I think if we work together we can build something super cool.”
