Anything for Her(13)

“You get something to eat okay?”

“Sure.” After a first, swift look, Sean went back to staring at the ceiling. “You like her?” he asked after a minute, sounding grudging.

“Yeah.” Nolan felt his smile stretching and struggled to keep it from becoming so wide he’d look like an idiot. “I do. I think you will, too.”

That earned him an incredulous flick of a glance. “What difference does it make what I think?”

Nolan’s eyes narrowed at the near-sneer in the boy’s voice. He’d made it clear from the beginning that he was committed to Sean—whether Sean ever became ready to talk about adoption or not, the boy was Nolan’s son. It seemed Sean was having trouble believing him.

“Because I’m hoping she’ll become part of my life. Of our life,” he corrected himself, then thought, Whoa. He’d just met this woman. Sure, he wanted to take her to bed, but...make her part of Sean’s life as well as his? Where had that come from?

“She’s that hot?”

Hell, yes, she was, but he was stunned to realize his dick wasn’t the only part of him feeling exhilarated. “She looks like a dancer,” he tried to explain.

The eyes cut his way again. “You mean, a stripper?”

Nolan had a feeling he was meant to be offended. Instead he laughed. “No. A ballerina. There’s something... Well, you’ll see.”

“Does she know about me?”

“I mentioned you when I took her the quilt, remember?”

“Oh.” Sean’s voice was still surly. “Right.”

Nolan guessed it was too soon to suggest an outing with all three of them no matter what. It was true she’d sounded sympathetic to Sean when she talked about the insecurity she’d felt after her parents’ divorce, but that didn’t necessarily mean she had any interest in getting to know a sullen fourteen-year-old boy. Nolan had never given any thought before to how a woman would react to him having a son, mostly because he hadn’t thought much about getting serious about any woman. Now here he was, after one date, feeling damn serious. Alarmingly serious.

Too soon, he told himself again. See how it goes. Don’t risk Sean’s feelings until you’re a lot surer than you are yet.

Okay, he could do that.

“You’d better hit the sack,” he suggested. “Morning comes early.”

Sean sneered again, but more naturally, as if he was kidding. Nolan had always been an early riser, but even he had been surprised at how early the school bus came. The elementary school started the day at what seemed a more reasonable hour, but the middle school and high school both started classes at 7:30 a.m. He assumed it had to do with the necessity to get the first round of bus routes over in time to start the second one as well as with the need to allow daylight at the end of the day for sports and the like, but he thought it was too early for kids to be at their sharpest. Sean sure as hell wasn’t. Nolan all but had to propel him out the door to meet the bus at the road.

Nolan went downstairs to make sure the house was locked up and turn off lights. He paused before going back up. He heard water running in the bathroom and was hit, not for the first time, by how much his life had been changed by his decision to take in the tall, skinny boy with the greasy blond hair he’d first encountered at the grocery store, of all places.

Back in February or so, he’d been going in when a man and teenage boy were coming out, the man pushing a cart with difficulty through winter slush.

“Did you steal that?” There was an unpleasant snap in the man’s voice.

“What? No!” The boy sounded shocked. “You saw me put it in the cart. I thought...”

“You thought wrong. You ask if you want something. Hear?”

“It’s just beef jerky.”

“We don’t buy junk.”

Watching the two walk across the parking lot, Nolan had been struck by the dislike on the man’s face. How could you look at your own boy that way?

He saw them again a couple months later, in spring. The hardware store that time. He’d rounded the end of one aisle and started down the next, and there they were. They weren’t talking. The kid was trailing disconsolately a good ten, fifteen feet behind the man Nolan assumed was his father. His head hung, his shoulders were slumped. His feet dragged.

There came a moment when the dad pushed the cart around the corner and Nolan and the boy were alone.