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“Joel,” her lips brushed his, “I can’t guarantee that if we come to stay with you, we’ll leave.”
“Don’t leave, then,” he said. “There are things I can do to get you to stay.So many things…”
He cradled the back of her head, kissed her harder, and exhaled a moan quieter than a whisper as he lifted her off her feet.
She knew what shewantedto tell him.
But she didn’t.
It wasn’t time yet.
She cradled the sides of his face, her eyes opening and closing as their lips met and their heads turned. If she wasn’t looking at his mouth, she was looking into his eyes. If he wasn’t looking into her eyes, he was looking at her mouth.
“Just so you know, Josiah already has his room picked out at my place,” he said, his voice like sandpaper.
She laughed, not the slightest bit surprised.
“Ayesha, I’ll always be here for you. During the easy moments, the hard moments—it doesn’t matter. I’ll always be here for you. I can never repay you for everything you’ve done for me, but know that having you in my life is everything Inevercould have wished for. People know how to ask for happiness. I never would have known how to ask for you.”
Choking up, she brushed his hair off his forehead. “Joel, that sounds dangerously like you’re in love with me.”
“It does?” He smiled. “Can’t have that.”
She alternated between hugging and kissing him, euphoria replacing her earlier misery.
Eventually, he set her on her feet.
They made their way back into the room, but as she climbed in beside Theo, Theo jerked in his sleep.
“Don’t hurt my mama, Veeny.”
“Veeny?” She searched Theo’s face, looking for a sign or a clue. Anything. “Is that a word? A name?”
“I’m not sure,” Joel said. “I’ll ask Giorgio, see if he’s ever heard it.”
She kissed Theo’s cheek. “Mama and Joel are going to find out what’s hurting you and fix this, okay? I swear. I love you so much. Please know that if something happened to you and Mama wasn’t there to protect you, she’s so, so sorry, sweetheart. So sorry.”
Before the end of the week, the four of them would be under one roof, and with the way Theo trembled against her, it wouldn’t be a moment too soon.
CHAPTER7
Joel and Ayesha decided it made the most sense to have Theo stay with him for the rest of the week while she and Josiah finished moving. Theo had his bag packed in under three minutes, but Joel had to repack it so they brought actual essentials instead of dinosaur toys, race cars, and juice boxes.
They asked Theo’s teacher if he could complete his work for the rest of the week virtually, and she told them Theo had been so anxious and withdrawn at school, she wanted them to treat his time away like any other illness. She also gave them a recommendation for someone they could speak to about his night terrors.
As it was cold outside, Joel set up a tent on the enclosed patio at his house and lit the outdoor fireplace. He even picked up artificial turf to simulate the grass the tent sat on top of. While he’d had a night of activities planned, Theo didn’t seem to be interested in anything other than lying on sleeping bags, tucked against him, while they read stories together.
“Are you sure you want me to read this one, Theo?” Joel flipped through a book about a baby bird who hatched while its mother was away. “Have you ever read it before?”
“My teacher at my old school in Maui readed it to our class,” Theo said. “It’s about a baby bird looking for its mama.”
Theo wanted them to wear matching pajamas, but he didn’t have anything blue with gray spaceships. So, he improvised with a blue Quantico T-shirt and gray pajama pants, the fabrics rustling against each other as Theo snuggled closer.
“Shereadit to your class?” He turned to the first page. “You must really like this story if you want to read it again.”
As he read, he understood why it had resonated with Theo.
It started with a mother bird sitting on an egg. When she felt the egg move, she realized it was getting ready to hatch and flew away to find food. While she was away, the baby bird hatched and subsequently went on an adventure to find its mother.
