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I blinked, digesting his words. Despite being distracted by the donuts, his gaze and the fact we were having this conversation while I was standing in front of him wearing only a towel, I got where he was coming from.
He didn’t need to spell out his meaning. The accusation. It was threaded through his words. Anyone could enter the house while I was in the shower, while Nathan was vulnerable.
Not that this was a neighborhood was one where strangers waltzed into other people’s houses at seven in the morning with nefarious intentions, but that wasn’t the point.
And we were more at risk than most people.
“Captain! You stayed over!” Nathan yelled, bounding into the room with the energy that he had naturally without any kind of stimulant, just youth. Unlike me he noticed the box on the coffee table immediately. “And you brought donuts from the good place. Mom said we can only go there on special occasions, is this a special occasion?”
Despite everything happening right now, the only thing important in this second was the kid in the Avengers PJs, grinning at a box of donuts, waking up in his own home.
“Yes,” I said, cupping his face. “It’s a very special occasion.”
He didn’t blink at my attire, considering he’d seen me walking around the house in only a towel while I waited for our laundry to dry multiple times. He always had fresh clothes, but I didn’t have a huge selection and put off washing my own.
“Can I eat them right now, Mom?” he asked, eyes wide and hopeful.
I grinned. “You will first have to thank Mr. Lance, he was the one who got them.”
Nathan turned, and that meant I had to let go of him. “Captain, you got donuts? But I thought you only ate spinach and lentils?”
“For dinner,” he said. “For breakfast, I eat donuts.”
My heart melted at my feet. It didn’t matter what he was like to me, the fact this man was good with my son was all that mattered.
Nathan’s beam lit up the room and he dove right into the donuts. My eyes widened at the sheer volume and variety.
My mouth watered as I stared at them too.
I moved my eyes to the coffee, arguably just as important as the sugar. “I know that Nathan is smart for his age, but I don’t have him caffeinated yet,” I said in reference to the multiple coffee cups. “Or are we expecting visitors? I guess that explains the volume of donuts that this kid couldn’t get through without lapsing into a coma,” I said, nodding to the boy with chocolate all over his face.
“One, buddy,” I told him as he reached in for another with a half-eaten one still in his hand.
“Didn’t know how you took your coffee,” Lance said. “Know you’re a single mom with a full-time job, so know you drink coffee. There’s one with milk, one without, and one with that almond milk crap that all woman seem to drink.”
I didn’t say anything, I just stared. He couldn’t be real.
“You should get dressed so you can eat,” Lance continued.
“Mommy doesn’t need to get dressed, this is her eating outfit,” Nathan contributed with a mouth full of donut.
I closed my eyes.
“Mommy does need to get dressed,” Lance answered.
My eyes snapped open. Was I imagining the heat in his voice. Upon inspection, his gaze hadn’t changed.
It was lack of caffeine, sleep and the trauma of the past days. I was hallucinating. Or whatever the hearing version of hallucinating was.
In a smooth move—that I was certain wasn’t smooth-like at all—I leaned forward, snagged a pair of panties and rushed from the room to get dressed.
And to have a lobotomy.
“Do you have a pee pee?” Nathan asked Lance, looking from his bike to him.
I gaped at my son.
He did not just say that.
He was a five-year-old. Of course he frickin’ said that. I wanted to be angry at the little human with no filter, but the twenty-four hours without him was too fresh, therefore he was going to get away with a lot for today and the near future.
Like eating two donuts for breakfast when he was never allowed that much sugar in such a condensed amount of time, definitely not before school. I penciled in a call with his teacher about two hours from now when he tried to lasso a squirrel or something at recess.
“Nathan,” I hissed. “You cannot just go asking questions like that.”
He looked to me, eyes wide, innocent and too beautiful for their own good. He was going to break some hearts, first of all, my own. “Why not?”
“Because it’s rude, and when you’re older, grounds for a sexual harassment suit,” I snapped, my voice not having much of a bite to it.
He folded his arms. “I don’t want to wear a suit,” he decided. “Captain doesn’t wear one and he’s still a superhero. Even if he doesn’t have a pee pee,” he added, looking back to the bike.
