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“How about you go get started and I’ll talk to Lance,” I said to Nathan, my smile still in place, but a little more forced than before.
Nathan didn’t need to be told twice. In his excitement to go and dig up worms, he forgot he was still holding the rod, and just let it go before running toward the back door. Luckily Lance’s badass instincts extended to the aftermath of an overly excited five-year-old.
I waited until the sound of the back-door closing echoed through the small living room. Then I stepped forward, dropped my purse and keys on the sofa that had appeared yesterday.
Along with another bottle of wine and a note from Rosie:
Not as kick-ass as your previous one, but it’ll do for now.
It was one hundred percent more kick-ass than my previous one, considering my previous one had been found at a flea market and restored with random patches of fabric. This was pure velvet, a deep purple, long and luxurious. And expensive. I knew that just by touching it. It was like you could sink into it. Sitting in it was like sitting in a cloud.
I couldn’t even resist stroking it as I dumped my bag and keys.
“Didn’t think you’d mind. Kid doesn’t have shit on today, his homework is done. Figured you could have an afternoon where you can do whatever shit you want. Take a break. Read a book. Whatever.”
Lance spoke before I could. It was an incredibly long sentence for him. I savored every word, even though they were uttered in that same deep, flat tone. That tone I felt everywhere in my body, more specifically right between my legs.
I took a deep breath and forced myself not to stare at the way his army green tee clung to his muscled biceps. Then I focused on the words, not just the tone, not just the fact that Lance offered up the first sentence as somewhat of an explanation.
He knew that Nathan had homework. That he’d finished it. He knew that he didn’t have a playdate scheduled, or anything else.
And he wanted me to have time to myself, to maybe read the book that was sitting on the coffee table, the one that I’d only managed the first chapter of.
All of this hit me in different places than his masculine and commanding voice. Because though the words were spoken in a cold and indifferent tone, the words themselves were far from cold and indifferent.
The fishing rod, the fishing gear, my son’s beautiful smile, all very, very far from cold and indifferent.
Which was the problem.
“You made Nathan smile,” I said as response. His face stayed blank, but the hand holding the rod twitched. I noticed it because I was training myself to notice every tiny movement, change of expression, tightening of muscles. They were all Lance’s almost invisible expressions.
They were what I clung to in the darkness.
And his overall hotness, obviously. But that was more for when I quietly put my hand into my panties late at night, imagining his body on mine, instead of in the bedroom next door.
The invisible expressions were used for much more dangerous fantasies, ones that the fishing rod and Nathan’s smile were adding to.
“He looks up to you,” I continued. “He thinks you’re a hero. He’s getting attached. He’s getting used to your presence.”
I paused, biting my lip, looking out the window that backed onto the yard, watching Nathan digging in the dirt with his hands.
“I think he’s falling a little bit in love with you,” I whispered, eyes still on the window because I was a coward. A coward who would never ever admit that I was falling a little bit in love with him too. I may not have protected myself against a man who hit me, bruised me and scarred me. But I had to protect myself against this man.
He’d hurt me worse than Robert ever had.
I knew that. I might have been willing to be brave and admit my feelings to Lance, or to creep into his room at night had it not been for the little boy with fists full of worms and a gentle soul.
I had to be brave in a different way. For my son. To protect him.
My eyes found Lance’s. They were not hard. Indifferent. It took the breath from my lungs, that miniscule amount of emotion lurking in his irises.
“Nathan’s been through so much,” I said. “Too much. Far too much. I’m going to have to live with the fact that it’s because of decisions I’ve made. It’s because I didn’t protect him as a mother should.”
My breath hitched at the same time Lance’s brows narrowed.
“I’ll live with it,” I continued before Lance could protest, and it looked like he was going to. “He smiles and it makes the world go away.”
