“Ice cream!” Leo announces to the entire bar.
Duke meets my eyes over the top of Leo’s head. “He had a spoonful.”
I rub the brown stain on Leo’s collar between two fingers. “He has chocolate on his shirt.”
“Maybe he had two spoonfuls.” Duke sets the diaper bag on the nearest stool, and the corner of his mouth twitches.
Crash spins his barstool toward Leo. “Hey, little man. Come here.”
Leo studies him. Toddlers are brutal judges of character. No social filter, no politeness. They like you, or they don’t, and you get about one second to pass the test.
Leo walks to him and holds up one hand. “High-five.”
It’s something that Trapper taught him the other day.
Crash gives him a high-five, gently, and Leo dissolves into giggles and grabs Crash’s knee. Crash scoops him up and sets him on the bar, and Leo reaches for his beer.
“No, sir.” Crash slides the glass out of range with one finger. “You have to be eighteen, buddy. Then we’ll talk.”
“Twenty-one,” I correct, walking back behind the bar.
He points at me without looking. “Right. Twenty-one. What she said.”
Duke pulls out a stool at the end of the bar, where he always sits. The seat has a clear line of sight to me and to every door in the building.
I pour him an iced tea without asking. He wraps his hand around the glass, and his fingers close over mine. Not a brush.Not an accident. He holds on, his thumb pressing into the back of my hand, and he doesn’t let go.
Two seconds. Three. My body responds. His touch on the back of my hand, and my mind is back in his bed, back under him, while he fucks me relentlessly. All of that from a glass of iced tea.
He lets go. I pull my hand back and grab a rag I don’t need.
Crash is watching us. He doesn’t say a word. The look on his face says everything, and he turns back to his Leo.
Shelby appears at the bar. “Leo! Get over here. I have dinosaurs.”
Leo’s head whips toward her. “Dinosaurs?”
She holds up the coloring book, and Leo is off Crash’s lap and across the room so fast Crash has to grab his beer to keep it from tipping. Shelby takes Leo to a corner booth, spreads the coloring book open, dumps a handful of crayons on the table, and sits across from him.
“This one,” Leo says, jabbing a finger at something like a tenured paleontologist.
Shelby leans in. “That’s a Triceratops.” She pulls a blue crayon from the pile. “But he looks sad. Should we make him blue?”
Leo grabs the green crayon with his whole fist. “Green.”
“You’re the boss.”
They bend over the book together, and Leo scribbles across the page with full commitment. Shelby colors beside him, staying inside the lines. They’re an odd pair, the president’s Old Lady and a two-year-old, and they’re both completely absorbed.
Duke is watching them. His iced tea sits untouched. His eyes stay on Leo, brown hair falling across his forehead, a dimple appearing in his left cheek when he grins.
He’d be a good father. He’s already a good father, and he doesn’t even know he’s being one. And that’s what keeps me up at night. Not what happens if I tell him and he’s furious.
Fury, I can survive.
What keeps me up is the other version, the one where I tell him, and he steps up, and he’s perfect, and he wants Leo.
And doesn’t want me.
