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“Jake. What’s he like?”
My exhale whooshed out. For a second, I thought he’d been talking about Stan. Maybe because that was where my thoughts had been. I hated that I was on my way to see my son for the first time in seven months, and worries about my ex polluted my thoughts. Like storm clouds in front of the sun or a thicket of thorny branches shielding a rose bush.
I’d done all the right things. Played by all the rules. He couldn’t keep Jake from me. Not anymore.
“He loves superheroes. All of them, but he really loves to make up his own. He makes up whole stories. Draws the pictures and everything,” I said, feeling myself lighten instantly as I talked about him. “And swimming. I’ll take him to the pool at the beginning of the season, and the water is cold enough to make him shiver, but he won’t get out. By the time we leave, his lips are practically blue, and he’s shaking from the cold, but he’s crying because he doesn’t want to go.”
“I know where he gets that from,” Zeke murmured wryly.
“His love of swimming?”
“His willfulness,” he returned, his eyes glittering with that golden warmth that made my stomach flutter and my toes curl.
I tried to hold back a smile, but I couldn’t. Everyone always commented how much Jake looked like Stan, but to hear Zeke say he sounded like me even though he hadn’t met him yet… It was silly, but I blinked back tears. Jake was my son, too.Mine.And I was going to fight like hell to get him back.
One step at a time,I cautioned. I was the one coming from behind. Drug addict. History of addiction and overdose. I had to earn back my right to my son, but when I did, I was going to make sure Stan never took him from me again.
“And he’s so smart,” I went on. “I know parents always say that about their own kids, but I promise, he’s really smart.”
“I believe you,” Zeke assured me with a tipped grin.
My teeth pulled on my bottom lip.God, he looked so good today.He looked good every day, but this… dark jeans, a button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, the collar unbuttoned. Maybe it wasn’t the outfit. Maybe it wasn’t the delicious way his jeans hugged his firm ass or the way his shirt bunched at his forearms, the fabric stopping short of the layers of muscles and veins that tapered to his wrists. Maybe it was that he was here for me.
It had been a long time since someone was here for me the way Zeke was.
I pressed my hands to the fabric of my sundress and ran them down my thighs. I didn’t have anything nice—I’d come to Blooms with nothing, too afraid that if I went back to the house for anything, Stan would find a way to get me to stay—that he’d find a way to leverage Jake over me. When I told Callie that our request was approved, she’d offered to let me borrow a dress—a crisp, white sundress that hit mid-calf, had bows on the shoulders, and made my boobs look good. I’d never say it was revealing, but the way Zeke looked at me when he’d picked me up… it was like I’d walked out of the house in lingerie rather than a borrowed summer dress.
“What else?”
I let my gaze wander over him once more. One hand on the steering wheel. The other resting on the shifter. My mouth dried, and I blurted out,“He drops everything.”
“What?” Zeke tipped his head and laughed.
I didn’t know why I’d said that. There were a million other things to say about Jake, but I wanted Zeke to really know my son… not some perfect picture I could paint of him.
“He’ll be holding something one minute and then next, it’s on the floor,” I continued. “Nothing is wrong with him. Stan insisted we take him to the doctor about it a few years ago, and they couldn’t find anything.”
“Your ex had him checked out because the kid drops stuff?” Zeke sounded incredulous. He sounded like I’d felt when Stan insisted, but what could I do?I couldn’t stop him.I could never stop him.
“He was worried.”
And angry.The time Jake had dropped a full glass of milk at the table… I’d never seen Stan so angry. But there was no arguing with him once he’d made up his mind, especially about something medical.
“Ithink Jake’s mind just goes somewhere else, daydreaming.”
Zeke hummed low. “Eve was like that. I’ll never forget the time I came home from soccer practice and heard the hose running in the back. Addy had asked her to water the plants, but her mind was somewhere else. She was just standing there with the hose on, the poor plants drowning as her imagination ran wild.”
Everyone at Blooms knew how the Williams siblings had grown up. Raised by their grandparents until they passed away at which point, Zeke and Addy had been fully responsible for their younger sister, Eve. I had a feeling Zeke felt responsible for both his sisters long before that.
“You played soccer?”
“Not very well and not for very long,” he admitted with a laugh. “And not my point.”
“I know.” I smiled. “Your sister is lucky she had someone to encourage her creativity.” For an impossible second, I imagined Jake having Zeke as a father. His patience and dedication. His kindness.Insane and impossible, Kenzie.I gave my head a little shake and added, “If Jakegrows up half as creative and half as kind as Eve, I’ll be happy.”
And if, years from now, once Jake and I were safe, I found someone who was half as chivalrous and half as handsome as Zeke Williams, I’d be happy, too.
* * *
