“It’s okay, Mama. I eat them. I just won’t like them.”
I couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled to the surface. “No, baby, if you don’t like something, you tell me and I’ll make something else. It’s okay to not like things.”
He nodded, moving his truck over my leg, almost like he was lost in thought.
“Just like…”
He stopped himself, but I raised his chin with my finger so he had to look in my eyes. “Like what, baby?”
“You didn’t like that mean man, but you stayed there. Why didn’t you telled him you didn’t liked him?”
And there it was. My actual heart was breaking in two. He’d seen everything I had tried to hide. My beautiful, observant boy.
“I’m so sorry, Van. Mama made a big mistake. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I know now it was wrong.”
“It’s okay. I knowed you didn’t want me to see, but sometimes I seed it. I heared you cry.”
Closing my eyes to block out the painful expression in his gaze, I pulled him into my body again. His arms wrapped around my neck and I sobbed into his, telling him how sorry I was, how I would be better, for him. No one would ever hurt us again.
That’s when I looked up at the doorway again, and I saw him. Maverick had obviously heard what he’d said, and now hestood there, with a stony-faced expression on his face. “Are you hungry?” he asked.
“Yes!”
Van jumped up so quickly that I almost copped a head to the nose. That would have wrapped up the pain meter by a thousand. Thank god I was used to Van’s bursts of energy and threw my head back before it connected.
Maverick chuckled and helped Van off the bed, taking his little hand and leading him outside to give me time to get up. Seeing him with Van did something to me, something…primal… something that it shouldn’t be doing.
And I very much wanted to be selfish and let my primal side win for once.
Maverick
Listening to Van talk about his adventures in the clubhouse had me stifling laughs behind my fist, in between food. Tavi was giving him all the right responses and reactions for him to light up. I found that I loved watching her interact with him, delighted with all the things he was saying.
“Thend Vegas showed me how to play pocker!”
“Poker?!” Tavi exclaimed.
“Yes!” Van screamed excitedly. “It was fun. I made chippies, but you can’t eat these chippies. They were hard and didn’t look like foods.”
“When we go back, kiddo, I’ll show you how to win at poker. I’m the best in the club.”
“Really?” he exclaimed, his eyes wide with fascination. Then he turned to Tavi. “Can I?”
“If you’re going to be good at anything, baby, you gotta make sure you learn from the best.”
Oh fuck.
When she turned and smiled at me, I was done for. I wanted her under me, on top of me, curled into me as I fucked up into her. I wanted to hear her cry out my name, over and over again.
Now…was most definitely not the time to have these thoughts with her toddler son right the fuck next to me. Listening to him get all excited over his day and what he liked made me miss my own son. He’d taken to ignoring my texts now which only made me think back to the day in the hospital when he thought I didn’t love him.
I needed to fix this.
For years, I’d stayed back, out of their way, watching from a distance, but the older they got, the more I wanted to be invested. I wanted to see them succeed, to watch them grow into young adults and take on the world. I wanted tobethere for that. It only reinforced the notion that I had completely fucked up when I told Mari to keep them away from me.
“Are you all right?”
I looked up at Tavi, who was watching me with a keen eye.
