The corner of Rogue's mouth moves up just a little. "Thank you, partner."
Nash taps the rim of his milk glass with one finger. His eyes are still moving over the cabin. "It needs a couch, though. You only got one chair."
Rogue looks at the one chair like he hasn't really seen it in a while. Then he looks back at Nash, and the dry smile shows up—the slow one, the one that takes its time. "You're right. I'll get a couch big enough for us."
I laugh from the stove and have to grip the wooden spoon to keep my hand steady.
Nash takes a sip of his milk, sets the glass down carefully so he doesn’t spill it. Then he looks at Rogue again with a question already forming. "Can you read to me?"
Rogue pushes off the counter and walks to the kitchen table.
He pulls out the second chair and sits down across from my son.
He folds his hands on the table the way he does when he's about to give something his full attention.
"What book, partner?"
Nash's face lights up. He shifts forward in his chair until his elbows are on the table. "TheCaptain Underpantsone."
Rogue nods once. Like Nash has just made a perfectly reasonable request that he is glad to accommodate. "Get it out of your pack after dinner. We'll read it together."
Something in my chest splits clean open.
I turn back to the stove because my eyes are doing things I don't want either of them to see, and I stir the stew that doesn't need stirring.
I listen to my son ask the man who I’m falling for to read to him.
I listen to that man pull out a chair and sit down across from him to answer him.
I press my free hand against my sternum where the ring rests against my skin, close my eyes, and let the moment go through me without trying to name it.
Garrett. I think you'd like him.
The wooden spoon is steady against the side of the pot.
I can hear Rogue saying something quiet to Nash behind me and Nash laughing.
This man is good, Garrett.
Diesel sighs from the rug.
I open my eyes, blink hard, and ladle stew into three bowls.
I carry them to the table and set Nash's in front of him first, kissing the top of his head while I do.
I set Rogue's down second. His hand finds the small of my back as I do—light, brief,there.
I sit down in the third spot with my own bowl. The third spot at a table that until tonight had two chairs.
We eat.
Nash chatters between bites about the dummy steer Spur is going to teach him to rope on.
Rogue answers him in the same patient way he used at breakfast—slow, specific, treating my son's questions like they matter.
Because they do. Because Nash has been hungry for somebody to treat his questions like they matter for two years now, and tonight that hunger is being fed.
I watch Rogue listen to him.
