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Ezra was silent, but his eyes were moving a mile a minute. I kneeled on the other side of him and wrapped my arm around his middle.
“Whatcha think, baby buddy? Do you like this room?” I asked.
He looked from me, then to Callum, and he leaped. Not at me. No, I was chopped liver next to my big ol’ rock star of a sweet, sweet man.
Callum caught him, cradling Ezra’s small body to his.
“Thank you, Cow-um. I love my Bob. I love it.”
“You got it, bud.” Callum’s eyes met mine over Ezra’s head. They were softer than I’d ever seen them. My boy had that effect. And maybe, I was a little surprised his pureness broke Callum down the way it did, but I liked it. Oh, I really liked it.
Then, Ezra further clenched the remnants of my damn exploded heart by asking Callum to lie with us while I read him a bedtime story...which he insisted Callum choose.
So, the three of us laid in Ezra’s bed for the night, and it felt...natural. Way too comfortable and sweet. It scared me, the way I loved every second of it. It scared me the way Ezra seemed to love every second of it too.
After two books, Ez was flagging and said he was ready to go to sleep. Callum gave his head a pat, and I kissed his cheeks and gave him a mighty squeeze. I left him there, looking so small and peaceful in that big bed. Callum was waiting for me in the hall.
Without saying a word, he wrapped his arms around me, holding me against his chest. I held him back, resting my cheek over his heart.
It was early still, so we ended up back in the living room. Callum lay on his back, his head propped on a couple pillows. He positioned me on my side, my front plastered to him, my back to the cushions. My arm was draped over his middle, his was around my shoulders. Our legs were tangled, and it was so damn comfortable and easy, I didn’t know what to do with myself.
“He’s lucky,” Callum murmured.
“I know he is. I try really hard not to be my parents.”
He shifted so he was looking at me. “Even when you corrected him, you were so gentle. Not used to that, Little Bird.”
“I can’t imagine being harsh with him.”
“Lots of parents are more than harsh with their kids, even when they’re tiny like Ez. You and I both know that.”
“Yeah.”
His fingers trailed along my arm. “You know what I was doin’ when I was three? My mama had this grift that worked like a charm. She’d walk around with a big pregnant belly and me by her side. I carried a bag of oranges and I’d sell ’em to people at fairs and on the street, depending on where we were. She liked takin’ me out more than Chrys and Rasc because I was quiet and didn’t fuck her shit up. Plus, I was kinda cute. Not as cute as Ez, but cute.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.” But I knew it had to be worse than that, and I almost didn’t want to hear it.
His fingers kept trailing, nice and slow. “She wasn’t even pregnant. Belly was a fake to garner pity and make quick green. She’d dirty me up before takin’ me out. Sometimes that came from rubbin’ dirt on my face, other times, it came from not bathin’ me for days. So, I was filthy, sad, draggin’ around, sellin’ those oranges. People felt bad for me, for her, so they’d buy an orange for five bucks. It wasn’t the worst thing to happen to me, not by a mile. But the fact that I was three and can remember it, clear as day, says a lot. I can still feel the blisters on my feet from walkin’ for miles in cheap, plastic shoes that were fallin’ apart. She had a set amount she wanted to make each day, and we’d stay out until she did. It’d be hours, Little Bird. I’d get sunburned, dizzy from the heat, and she’d keep tuggin’ me along.”
“Shit,” I breathed.
“Yeah. Shit.” He rolled to his side and touched his lips to mine. “That’s what I know. So, when I say Ezra’s lucky, I mean it. Seein’ you together, the way you’re so damn good to him, that’s a balm to my battered soul. ’Cause the oranges? They’re so small in the grand scheme of the things I saw, the events and trauma I lived through and walked away from. Knowin’ Ez will never experience anything like I did is a bridge over the chasm of my childhood.”
“You’re such a good man, Callum. You could have stayed down in that dirt, but look at you, baby.Youpulled yourself out of it.Yourose above it. I hate that you had to rise above anything, but you did. And you stayed good and kind and gentle through all of it.”
“Nah, I’m not good.”
“You are to me. You are to my son.”
He exhaled slowly through his nose. “I always will be. You can’t leave me, though. Not after givin’ me this taste. You can’t walk away.”
“I don’t want to, baby. Keep being good to us, and there’s no reason I’d ever walk away.”
He nodded, but that furrow appeared between his brows again. “I don’t know how to be normal. I’ve got a lot of shit in my head I’m probably never gonna work out. Don’t think I’ll ever like many other people. I’m gonna be possessive of you in a caveman sort of way. I’ve got kinks I’m always gonna need to indulge in with you. Sometimes I get dark and disconnected, though it’s better when you’re around.”
I interrupted him. “I know all this, baby. Why are you telling me this like I don’t know you?”
His fingers sifted through my hair, pushing it off my face. “Because, even with all those reasons I should let you go, all the bad in me I’m well aware of, I’m not walkin’ away. I won’t ever.Ever. And I’ll always be good to you and Ez, even if I get some things wrong.”
