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The music filled the room the instant I tapped the screen. Amy and Harry got up and started dancing. “Do it!” they yelled at Sammy. Sammy smiled from ear to ear.
Then his shirt was off.
“No!” Chloe laughed.
And then his shorts were gone.
Mary’s giggle turned to a guffaw.
“Always with the clothes off!” Chloe yelled over the music. “Dean. Do something!”
Dean slowly stood up, a stern look on his face.
I turned to Sammy, now completely naked. His tiny body shaking from side to side. “Drop that booty booty!”
“You bet your ass I’m going to do something.” Dean turned his back to Mary . . . Then right as the chorus hit and the kids’ singing got louder, he stuck his ass out and copied Sammy’s dancing.
“Oh my God!” Chloe pushed her plate aside, folded her arms on the table in front of her and dropped her head on them.
I stroked her back and laughed as I took in the sight of her family. Even Mary got up and joined in.
Leaning down, I whispered in her ear, “What’s wrong?”
“They’re crazy,” she whispered back as if her answer should have been obvious.
I leaned in closer so she could hear me. “They’re not crazy, Chloe.” I shifted my eyes and continued watching them. “They’re kind of perfect.”
I swore I heard her say, “You’re kind of perfect,” but when I glanced back to ask her to repeat it, she was sitting up in her seat, all emotion gone.
“My cheeks hurt from laughing so hard,” she said as she led me up to her room.
It had been Dean’s idea that she show me. I’d almost high-fived him on the spot before I’d remembered that he was kind of like a dad to her and it would be a little inappropriate. I’d wanted to spend time with her alone since I’d arrived.
She opened a narrow door on the second floor that exposed an equally narrow staircase, leading up to what I assumed was the attic. “So this is it,” she said, standing in the middle of the tiny space and motioning her hand through the air. There was a bed with a nightstand on one side pushed up against the corner, a desk, and one of those temporary wardrobes, which had a few clothes hanging in it. And about two feet of free space. The room made mine look like a mansion.
Her laugh pulled me out of my daze. “I know it’s not much, but I survive.”
“I know that . . . but you can’t take one of the bedrooms downstairs?”
She shook her head. “The kids have them.”
“They can’t share?”
“They can, but they have nightmares sometimes, so Mary likes them to have their own space.”
I nodded, but I found it hard to imagine what life was like there. I glanced quickly at the tiny window, the only one in the room, the one she had stood behind and watched me leave from the first night we met.
“You should be careful. You’re gonna hit your head on the ceiling.”
I looked up at the beam a few inches in front of me. “Shit,” I breathed out. “You’re lucky you’re short.”
She laughed at that.
“So, my mom—” I took a step toward her, hitting my head on the beam.
“Oh my God,” she squealed. “I just warned you.”
Pressing my hand against my forehead, I tried not to curse. “I know.”
“What is wrong with you?” She grasped my forearms and pushed me back until I felt her bed behind my legs. “Sit!”
I sat.
“Let me see.”
I let her see.
“You’re such a baby. There’s barely a lump.”
“You’re mean.”
“Cry to your mama.”
Then her face fell, and she frowned.
“Speaking of my mom . . .” I raised my eyebrows in question.
She stayed silent.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my keys to show her my new key chain: Mom’s six-month-sobriety chip. “She came and spoke to me when she got home.”
She looked down at the object in my hand, and her frown turned to a smile. “Really?”
I nodded, my eyes fixed on her lips. “Yeah. She said that you gave her the courage to talk to me. Apparently, she’d been wanting to for a while, but she was afraid of how I’d react. She thought I hated her.”
“And you don’t?”
“No,” I sighed. “I really don’t. I think that I was disappointed in her. And it may have made our relationship worse because I think she should’ve at least seen how I was feeling. That’s what I told her. But no, I don’t hate her. Honestly, I kind of miss her.”
Her smile widened.
“She didn’t go into too much detail, though. She said she needed time, but hopefully soon. There’s a family thing at her AA meeting coming up. She asked if I wanted to go. I don’t know if I’m ready for that. It seems like a big step. What do you think?”
“Me?”
I laughed. “Yeah you.”
“I don’t think I know your mom or your relationship well enough—”
“But you know me,” I interrupted. “And your opinion matters to me.”
She chewed her lip, her gaze looking past me, into the distance. “I don’t know,” she said so quietly I almost missed it. “It’s your mom, Blake. I know that I wouldn’t walk away from an opportunity to get closer. Maybe this way you can stop missing her?”
