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I halted in the doorway, groaning. What was that saying? If your child was too quiet, then they were up to no good. I should have known when I took the laundry upstairs…
“What have you done?” I asked both of the boys, not expecting an answer from either of them. I could hear Bailey’s soft laughs from behind me, but one quick look at her told me that she was doing her best to keep them at bay.
“We…” Kian looked around, as if seeing the mess for the first time. “We wanted to help clean?”
I blinked, then blinked again. Reed was covered head to toe in laundry detergent, his clothes sticking to every inch of him. Kian was surprisingly not covered in anything. Taking stock of everything in the room, there were suds on the sofa, a puddle of detergent in the middle of the rug, mixed in with who the hell knew what. My table had been scrubbed with the stuff, and even the walls where Reed had drawn on them last week. Although…that had actually come off now, so maybe this was a win after all?
I shook my head, trying to keep my own smile as low as possible. “We need to clean up, don’t we, boys?”
“But that’s what we were doing,” Kian said, holding up a sponge to show me. Reed copied him, looking dead serious.
“You…I…” I closed my eyes, finally giving in to the grin and letting out a little chuckle. “I can see that,” I finally managed to get out, opening my eyes. “But let’s clean up the cleaning up?” I said it like a question, not sure if it sounded right, but either way, it felt like every time I turned my back, there was something else for me to do. Not that I minded, but sometimes…sometimes I just wanted to be able to sit down and not worry about anything. Not have to think about how it was all on my shoulders, weighing me down.
There had only been a handful of times when I’d ever felt like I didn’t have to worry about it all: when I was growing up with my big brother, Ace, and when Raf was around.
Dammit. I shouldn’t have let those thoughts into my head, because now as I picked Reed up and took him in the kitchen where I stripped him down and cleaned him up, all I could think about was how safe I felt with both of them. How I should have felt like that with Travis, but I never had.
I stared at Reed as I dressed him in some clean clothes—luckily his pile of laundry was still down here, waiting for me to take up and put away in his closet.
“There, all cleaned up,” I announced, placing him on my hip, then heading back into the living room where Kian and Bailey still were. They were hard at work, trying to clean everything up and get the majority of the suds out.
“Your sofa is going to take a few days to dry,” she said, dropping to the floor where Kian was playing with his trains that were still partly covered in suds.
“At least it’ll smell nice, right?” I said, trying to look on the bright side.
“Yeah,” she whispered, and her low word reminded me why she’d come here. Reminded me of what she was about to say to me before Kian interrupted. “Peyton—”
“You want a coffee?” I asked, not wanting her to ask anything. The moment I opened up about the past was the moment I knew I’d have to move on. I couldn’t let anyone into that. I couldn’t let them see what was following me. I couldn’t allow them to find out what I was running from—sprinting from.
“No.” She stood, tilting her head at me. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m good,” I said, way too quickly to be believable. And if the expression on her face—her frown and wrinkled-up nose—was anything to go by, she didn’t believe me at all.
“And Kian?”
I glanced over at him, remembering how upset he’d been a couple of days ago at Bailey’s house. I’d been talking to Navy about all things babies and how we should get together for a play date. It wasn’t until her little boy, Dario, started to get fussy that I managed to go back outside. As soon as I’d walked out there and seen Kian upset, mom mode kicked in. I’d left without many words, knowing that people would think it was strange. But I had to protect Kian. I had to make sure he was okay because he’d seen so much more than Reed had—than he ever would.
“He’s okay too.” I smiled, knowing that after some kisses and cuddles and a movie on the sofa, he was okay. All he needed was reassurance, and I’d been able to give that to him without even trying. But it was a reminder, one that told me Kian still had to recover from what his dad had put us through.
My stomach bottomed out, my anxiety kicking in full force. I pressed my hand to my stomach, trying to keep my mask in place in front of Bailey. “I’m not feeling too great.” It wasn’t a lie, it was the truth. But it was code for I need to be alone.
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “I better get going.”
Neither of us said another word as she gave both of the boys a kiss on the cheek, then walked out of the house. She turned at the last minute, her features screwing up. “I also…um…” She bit down on her bottom lip. “Never mind. I’ll see you later.” She waved her arm in the air, shrugging her shoulders as she walked away and across the driveway to her home.
Not wanting to think about anything other than my two boys in the house, I stepped back inside, getting on with all of the chores—which felt like a never-ending list, but that was what moms did, right? We looked after everyone around us.
Sometimes though, it would have been nice to be looked after. Maybe just once.
The hope that that would someday happen filled my mind as I cleaned the house, cooked dinner, bathed the boys, tucked them into bed, then finally tucked myself into bed. Only, the problem was, my brain chose that moment to run into overdrive, refusing to sleep.
So when my cell pinged at eleven p.m., I was wide awake.
I clicked the message open, frowning at the number that I didn’t recognize.
Unknown
Hey, mama.
