"Sounds good. Goodnight, Colt."
He smiles, and something warm flickers in those blue eyes.
"Goodnight, Morrison."
I watch him go, my gaze dropping traitorously to the way his jeans fit around his cute backside. I press my back against the doorframe, letting the cold wood ground me.
The bell chimes softly behind him, and I quickly turn to head upstairs so I don't give in to the urge to call him back and drag him into the kitchen to let those big hands have their way with me.
I find Morgan in bed, already burrowed under her comforter with her braids fully destroyed. She's place the Colt Lane–signed lunchbox carefully on her nightstand and I can't help but laugh.
"Alright, girlie. Teeth?"
"Brushed."
"With toothpaste?"
"…Yes."
I narrow my eyes but let it go. Just for tonight.
I sit on the edge of her bed, smoothing the comforter around her shoulders.
"Did you have fun tonight?"
She nods through a yawn, rolling onto her side to face me. Her hazel-green eyes are heavy with sleep, but there's something working behind them.
"Mom?"
"Yeah, baby?"
She picks at a loose thread on her pillowcase.
"Can you tell me about my dad again?"
Oh, god.
I've answered this question before. Dozens of times, in dozens of ways, each version a little more carefully edited than the last.Your dad loved you very much. Sometimes people need to gofind themselves. It's not your fault, sweetie. It was never your fault.
But tonight, sitting here with shimmering nails and new hair, with the echo of Colt's laugh still ringing in my ears, the practiced answer feels thin.
"What do you want to know?" I ask softly.
"Ummm…" Morgan is quiet for a moment. "Was he funny?"
I think about the boy I married at nineteen who could make an entire lunch table laugh. Then about the man he became… quiet, distant, a stranger on the other side of the mattress.
"He used to be," I say. "When we were young."
"Did he play games? Like card games?"
And there it is.
The comparison she's drawing without knowing she's drawing it.
"Not really, baby. He wasn't much of a games person."
She nods, accepting this with the quiet gravity of a child who's been filling in blanks her whole life.
