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She rested her head on his shoulder and released a sigh of relief when his arms encircled her. “Then don’t. If you push me away, you’ll hurt me.”
“I make a mess of everything, Cindy. You should look out for yourself.”
“You don’t make a mess of everything. You’ve had some tough hits to be certain, but does this, right here, feel like a mess to you?”
He held her close. “No, it feels like heaven.”
“I rest my case.”
Jace slept like shit,tossing and turning and reliving the horribly awkward conversation with Seamus a thousand times. He’d been given the boot with his own kids. That hurt worse than anything had in a long time, especially since he’d been doing such a great job with the boys.
He got up early and used his phone to look up how to make pancakes. If this was going to be his last morning with the boys, he was going to make it count.
By the time he woke them half an hour later, he had a stack of steaming pancakes waiting for them. As usual, Kyle popped right up, but Jackson took some cajoling. He loved knowing what they were like in the morning and how to work around their dueling personalities.
“I made pancakes.”
“You know how to cook?” Jackson asked, sounding skeptical.
“Not really, but I figured it out.”
“Smells good,” Kyle said.
“Hey, guys, so later… Joe is getting here today, and he’s going to pick you up at school and stay with you tonight, okay?”
“How come?” Kyle asked, blond brows furrowed.
“I have to go back to work tonight, and he was coming home to see Carolina, so we decided he should take over here.”
“We want you,” Jackson said.
Had three words ever meant more to him than those did? “I want to be here, too, but this is better since I have to work at the bar until late tonight. You guys like Joe, right?”
Please let them say yes.
“Joe’s cool,” Kyle said. “He lets us drive the ferries.”
“Then you’ll be in good hands for another day or two until Seamus and Carolina get home—and then you’ll have to be a big help to her, because she’ll need that for a while.”
“Will you come visit?” Jackson asked.
“I sure will. I promise.”
He wanted to weep from the agony of having to step aside, but he’d do whatever was needed to ensure the boys’ lives didn’t get any more chaotic than they’d already been. No matter what it cost him.
They devoured the pancakes and teased Cindy about not being a morning person when she appeared, looking sleepy, a few minutes before they had to leave for school. “I stripped the bed and remade it with clean sheets.”
“Thank you.”
He packed lunches into backpacks and made sure homework folders were in there, too, before sending Burpy out to pee one more time while the boys brushed their teeth.
“You’re great with them,” Cindy said.
“Thanks. They make it easy.”
“You told them what’s happening?”
“Yeah.”
