Page 64 of The Pilot

“What? No!” Harper said firmly. “I would never, ever be with someone because of money. Or a house.”

“Good. Because you deserve love. And it’s obvious Linc loves you,” Kash said simply.

His sweet words felt good, and she had to bite her lip not to tear up. “Obvious, huh?” she said, knowing she was fishing, but wanting to know what her son saw when he looked at her and Linc.

“Uh-huh. His eyes follow you everywhere you go. If you get up to get a drink, he watches you. And the look on his face of . . . I don’t know . . . satisfaction? Contentment? Happiness? I’m not sure what it is, but when you come back, it’s easy to see. And he’s sleeping better, which is cool. It used to be when I’d get up in the middle of the night, he was always awake. Sometimes pacing, but most of the time in the kitchen making something. It didn’t matter if it was midnight, one, two, three . . . whenever I’d wake up to go to the bathroom, he’d be downstairs doing something.”

“I’m also very happy he feels more comfortable and can mostly sleep through the night now.”

“You know what, Mom?”

“What?”

“I think us moving in was good for him. It let him think about something other than what happened to him.”

“You know about that?” Harper asked, worried about what he might’ve heard.

“Just that he crashed and had to walk for days and days to safety.”

Relief filled Harper. Linc would hate for her son to know the details about what he’d gone through. She certainly wasn’t going to say anything to him, and it’s not as if Linc would’ve told him. She guessed that his brothers probably had a good idea of what he’d been through, because they’d been in the military and had training on evading the enemy when necessary. But Kash, as smart as he was, was still a kid and didn’t need to know all the horrible details of Linc’s ordeal.

“Well, I agree with you. I definitely think he’s better off with us being around.”

“And we’re definitely happier because of him,” Kash said firmly. “You aren’t so stressed, and we have food whenever we want it, and a safe place to sleep. You were able to clean out the car too. It’s nice.”

It was nice. But guilt still ate at Harper that she’d made her son go through what he had. She should’ve moved home years ago.

“You talked to Granddad lately?” Harper asked, wanting to change the subject.

Kash shrugged. “Yeah. He called the other day to see how school was going. Wanted to know how I did on my Spanish test.”

“That’s good. How did you do? You never said.”

“B-plus. It would’ve been an A, but I got bored and turned in the test without doing the last two matching questions.”

“Kash Bates! Why would you do that?”

He didn’t answer for a beat, then he sighed. “Honestly?”

“Of course. You should always be honest,” Harper told him.

“I didn’t want to blow the curve. Everyone’s always getting mad at me for getting perfect scores. And I didn’t want to deal with the grumbling and comments under people’s breath after we got the tests back. So I just . . . blew those last two questions off. And it worked,” he said, almost belligerently. “Everyone was happy, since no one got a hundred on the test and the teacher added four points to everyone’s score.”

Harper sighed. She was proud that her son was smart, way smarter than she ever was, but hated that he was still dealing with being bullied—and apparently dumbing himself down because of it. “How are things with Ginger and Donny?” she asked, referring to the older kids who were the worst of the ones who picked on him.

“They broke up.”

“They did?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So, are they leaving you alone?”

Kash was quiet a long time. Harper waited for him to answer. Didn’t badger him. Didn’t press for details. She wanted them, wanted to march to the school and tell the upperclassmen to leave her son alone, but that wouldn’t do anything but make them treat Kash worse. She felt helpless, and with every story about what her son endured at school, Harper hated the girl she’d been when she was in high school even more.

“Ginger is,” he said finally. “I think she was just following Donny’s lead because they were dating. But he’s still being a dick.”

She would’ve scolded him for his language, but she didn’t have the heart. Kash was growing up, and besides, dick wasn’t the worst word ever. She was positive he heard way worse at school and was toning down the words he used for her benefit.