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“But it’s not something we’ve spoken about.”
She shrugs. “It’s up to you.” Kissing my cheek, she smiles and pulls me to the door. “Lock up the house.”
I nod, still totally dazed from what was just said.
Holy crap!
Suddenly bed seems so daunting. Or bed with Nathan seems so daunting.
Tamping down my nerves, I begin to ascend the stairs, switching off the light as I go.
As expected, I find Nathan in the nursery and stand in the doorway watching him for a moment. His defined arm muscles bulge as he grips the side of Dillan’s cot. His shoulders tense and flex as his head hangs low and his back expands with each deep breath.
I open my mouth, but then close it again along with my eyes. I have no idea what to say. It’s not even something I’ve thought about.
Mum is right; he does deserve the title, but he has already taken Caleb’s place in a sense. It almost doesn’t seem fair that he gets Dillan as well. Or am I being stupid?
“Come to bed,” I say softly and begin moving towards him. “Come on, we’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”
He sighs and turns to face me. “Is it really that terrible that I want to be his father?”
“No,” I admit. “But it’s a complicated situation. I think that until things are set in stone, we shouldn’t do labels.”
“Set in stone?” A nervous smile shines at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I move around him, lean over the bars of the cot and press my lips to Dillan’s forehead. “Can we talk about it tomorrow?”
He wraps his arms around me. “You do know I’m not going anywhere right? I’d be a fool to leave now, not when I finally have everything I’ve wanted, including things I didn’t even realise I wanted.” He looks over to the cot while speaking the last words.
“Me too.” I smile, letting his words soak into my skin and warm me from my very core.
“I’ve been neglecting you as of late,” he whispers. “And for that I apologise. I was worried… after the last time, I thought I’d hurt you.”
He didn’t. He definitely didn’t. “If you’d hurt me, I would’ve said.”
We walk arm in arm to the bedroom, where I collapse on the bed face first. Nathan chuckles and I feel his hands at the waistband of my jeans. He slowly peels them over my arse and down my legs, before folding them and placing them inside of the laundry basket. Yes, he folds them first. I still have to clarify this with myself, yet I never fully understand it.
I fold my arms beneath my cheek and wait as he kisses the small of my back, making me shiver involuntarily, followed by a giggle.
“I don’t know why, but this just brought back a memory of when I used to play Lego as a small child.”
Blink. “Lego?”
“Yes. I used build little houses and then have my Godzilla doll knock them down.”
“That’s typical boy behaviour. I’m sure we’ll see a lot of that from Dillan. I’m not sure how I feel about my arse reminding you of Lego.” I smile into my arms and squeal when his hand connects with my soft globes. “What was that for?”
“I felt like it,” he chuckles and does it again, making me flip over and glare at him. The slaps weren’t hard, but they’ve left an after sting I don’t much care for. “Anyway, I remember building this castle out of six thousand pieces. It was brilliant. It took me days, possibly weeks; at the age of eight you don’t have much regard for time.”
At eight I was playing with Barbies and dancing around my room in a fairy costume.
“What happened to it?”
He grins and smoothes his hands back over my soft globes once more, before giving them a gentle squeeze. “I took it apart.”
“Why?”
“And then I built an even better one.”
“I feel like there’s a moral to this story.” I hear something drop on the ground and, when I feel his bare hands on my skin, I realize it’s his gloves.
“There’s not a moral, more like a realisation.” He slides up my back until his face is an inch from my ear and his body is completely covering mine. It’s hard to breathe, but in the most amazing way. “You’re my Lego castle.”
Umm… “I’m not sure I understand.”
“I’d work hard building it, placing the pieces perfectly until they formed rooms, and then I put them together and added a few towers and a roof. Next I’d sit back and admire my work, break it, and then do it all over again. It was the only time I was happy, the only time I felt like I was a normal boy.” Chest pain. “The result never got boring; it always amazed me.” More chest pains at the thought of a young brown haired boy, so sad and alone and in pain, finding joy in a Lego castle that he’d spent days building. “It helped me be young; it helped make me forget that I was in the house that brought me so much pain and misery. It’s strange that when you’re young, you don’t associate pain and sadness with the person inflicting it. You tend to blame it on the area, or a nearby object.”
