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Color me unconvinced. “You sure?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You lyin’ to me, boy?” My exaggerated southern drawl earns me nothing but a shrug.
I sigh as I pull into our driveway, quick to lock the doors when August tries to bolt the second I park. It’s not often I pull The Mom Card, even less that I employ The Mom Face but as I unclip my seatbelt and shift to face him, I brandish both. “Spill it, kiddo.”
August huffs. He slumps. He crosses his arms over his chest and tries to scowl at the dashboard but it’s weak. As weak as his voice when he says, “I don’t wanna live with John and Clare.”
Oh, my boy. My sweet, delusional boy.
“Good,” I manage to croak out over the lump in my throat. “Because you’re not living with John and Clare.”
“I like it here.”
“I do too.” Most of the time. When I’m not being accosted by cocky celebrities or pompous mothers or enraging baby daddies.
“I don’t wanna leave.”
“You’re not leaving.”
“Promise?”
“Try it, August. See how far you get.”
He peeks at me through furrowed, skeptical brows, and I’ve never hated Jonathan more. For instilling doubt where I try so hard to implant only love. For always doing this, having his little tantrums in front of August, exposing him to things I kill myself hiding. For, as much as he tries to deny it now, not wanting this wonderful boy that I would kill, maim, steal, do every nefarious activity under the sun for. “Cross my heart and swear to die, Goose. You’re stuck with me. Forever and always. ‘Til death do us part.”
“Even if you get a boyfriend?”
“August Lane, love of my life, I’m offended you’d even think that.”
A ghost of a smile curls my kid’s lips. He seems satisfied with that answer, and I am too, mentally giving myself a pat on the back, a hypothetical strike in the Good Mom Column.
That is until August opens his mouth again. “So you don’t have a boyfriend.”
“No, I don’t have a boyfriend.”When have I ever had a boyfriend?
“Coach Morgan isn’t your boyfriend?”
It’s a good thing we’re parked because otherwise, I’d crash the damn car. “No. Jesus, August. Who told you that?”
“Some of the other kids. Their moms told them.”
Okay. There is one scenario in which August lives with his dad; I go to jail for mass murder.
“I told them it wasn’t true ‘cause you’d tell me.” August pins me with some impressive side-eye. “But then I remembered you didn’t tell me you knew him, so.”
I barely resist the urge to bang my head against the steering wheel. “Sweet boy, I don’t know him.” And I really don’t wanna have this conversation. I’ve successfully avoided it for, what, two, three weeks now?
FuckingJohnruining everything.
Unconvinced, August shakes his head. “He knew your name!”
“Because we met one time! But we don’tknoweach other.”
“Where’d you meet?”
Oh, my love. How little you want the answer to that.
