It was day two of my three days with the boys—well, mostly Henry—and so far, it was going great. If you didn’t count Tommy slouching down in the front seat on the drive to school far enough I was worried he was going to pool into a puddle in the passenger wheel well. I’d tried to talk to him the day before, but he’d straight-up ignored everything I asked him. So today, I just talked to Henry. Which at least got Tommy to say “You know he can’t understand you, right?”
I considered this a win.
Today, after dropping Tommy off in Greenville, we stopped at my condo so I could grab a ball cap. It was hot, and I’d geared Henry up properly, but not me. Save the bathroom, my place was one single room and I kept it pretty neat. Not that I had many personal belongings to mess it up with.
I sat Henry down in the middle of the floor with his rice cracker. “You wait there.”
I opened the single closet, which was a dozen feet away from Henry, and dug around for maybe two seconds to find the hat I was looking for. But when I turned around, Henryhad vanished.
“Henry?” Panic shot through me.
I made myself calm the fuck down. He couldn’t be far. The windows were locked. I spun around, but he was nowhere.
Then I heard a noise. “Hay!”
I sprinted in the direction of his voice.
I found my son in the bathroom, his diaper-heavy butt sticking out of the cupboard.
“Henry!” I quickly grabbed him by the waist and slid him out. A whole pack of toilet paper came with him. Luckily that was all I kept down there.
“Are you trying to kill me, kid?” I asked, prying his iron-grip off the plastic and picking him up. I pressed a kiss to his cheek, my adrenaline still on high.
That’s when he whacked me over the top of the head.
“Ow!”
He squealed at that.
Henry somehow had a wooden comb in his hand. He hit me with it again. “Hay!”
“Are you sayinghair?”
Bonk.“Hay!”
I couldn’t help grinning. “You learned a new word!”
“Hay!” He whacked me again.
I pulled the comb from his hand and rubbed my head on his belly, making him explode in giggles. “I’m so proud of you, baby! Wait until we get home and tell Mom about this.”
I paused in the mirror. The way I said that made it sound somehow like we were a family. Like we had a home together. I felt sick with how much I liked the thought of that.
“What do you think?” I asked Henry in the mirror. “Do you like the sound of being a family?”
Even though it was ridiculous, my heartbeat ramped up from saying it out loud, and I found myself waiting on pins and needles for some kind of sign from Henry that he agreed.
Henry wrinkled his nose, which was not the response I’d been hoping for. But then he opened his mouth and abruptly sneezed in my face. Baby spit misted over my face, which was a little gross. But the sound he’d made was adorable.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said, reaching for a towel.
I chose to ignore the fact I was pretty sure I’d take anything as a yes.
Once back in Quince Valley, we headed for the town square, where I stopped to grab a coffee. I sat down on a bench, while Henry kicked back in the stroller next to me with his bottle. We spent the next twenty minutes hanging out, me soundly humbled by just about every woman who passed by. Several stopped to swoon at Henry, each one completely ignored me. When members of Henry’s fan club weren’t in attendance, we chatted about all the things happening around us.
Like the bird trying to pick up the crusts from someone’s sandwich on the sidewalk. Or the car screeching to a halt across the street, causing the vehicles behind it to honk angrily.
When the door to that car opened though, I groaned. “Oh no.”
