Breathe (Colorado Mountain #4)(122)

I had another volunteer look after the library for me in the afternoon and Chace and I were taking the first shift. They were leaving the party early and we were going later.

By this time, the bruising around Malachi’s face was gone, he was getting around on his leg very well and the bandages were off his hands because Dad decreed, “They need air.” That didn’t mean Mom didn’t gunk them up with Neosporin three times a day. They were healing really well and within a couple of days he had no problems holding the Kindle Dad bought him even with one arm in a sling.

He loved it. Mom downloaded a shed load of books on it and he was always in a chair or on the couch, eyes glued to it but his fingers hitting buttons, testing it out, seeing what it could do. He messed it up a couple of times so Mom and I had to sort it but he learned from what he did and by the weekend, he knew more of how it worked than I did my Nook.

Chace had noticed his fascination with this so on Saturday, while I was at work in the morning, he’d gone and bought Malachi a portable Nintendo and a few games.

Although Malachi no longer got visibly anxious around Chace, he still held back from him. So when we got to Mom and Dad’s, I gave him the game but told him Chace bought it. Then, not knowing much about it, I fumbled my way around showing him how to use it.

Obviously, and fortunately, I fumbled too much. This meant Malachi got impatient and gently pulled it out of my hands and carefully wandered to Chace, handing it to him.

I tried not to cry as, without a word or making a big deal of it, Chace crouched beside him and explained how to load the game cartridge and use the Nintendo while Malachi stood close, head bent, eyes riveted to it. Then Chace handed it to him and, get this! He leaned into Chace as his thumbs tentatively moved over the game.

It… was… awesome!

As I deep breathed, Chace let him do this, watching him test out the game then he slowly straightened, guided Malachi to a chair and sat him in it, Malachi’s head bent to the game the entire time.

It only came up when Chace started moving away. Malachi made a noise in his throat, slammed his elbow in the arm of the chair so Chace went back, asking quietly, “What is it, buddy?”

He bumped the arm of the chair with his elbow twice, his eyes on Chace and they didn’t leave until Chace sat his booty on the arm of the chair and stayed close while Malachi’s head bent back to the game. Sometimes, he’d lift it up and point at things so Chace would show him what to do. But he didn’t let Chace leave him until he had it down and was absorbed in it. And more, with great patience, since sitting there watching a kid play a video game probably badly couldn’t have been barrels of fun, Chace didn’t leave him and acted like he could sit there for forever.

This was awesome too, a heart melting awesome that I didn’t know what to do with so I just felt it and let’s just say it felt great.

Half an hour later, Malachi came into where Chace and I were sitting at the kitchen table. He still had the Nintendo but also the other game and he handed both to Chace.

Then he again leaned into Chace as Chace ejected the game, set up the new one and showed him as he told him what to do.

And he stayed leaned into Chace, his thumbs on the game, his head bent to it as Chace and I resumed talking, me with a huge, fraking grin on my face, Chace often shaking his head at me in that way he did when he thought I was doing something cute, his lips tipped up.

Eventually I had to come down from my high when Mom and Dad got home and we had to go to Liza and Boyd’s.

But a half an hour later, my high came back with a whomp when Chace and I walked through Liza and Boyd’s door and Jarot and Robbie raced to him. Both grabbed a hand, hauled him in but it was Jarot who shouted to his gaggle of friends, “This is my new Uncle Chace and he’s a cop!”

Thus commenced Chace showing his badge around. This bled into Chace somehow getting conned into giving kids piggyback rides. And this somehow devolved into Chace being wrestled to the floor with a slew of nine year olds, near nine year olds and Robbie’s three six year old friends’ flailing arms and legs being mostly all I could see.

“Okay,” Liza whispered in my ear, she’d sidled up to me and at the glance I spared her after tearing my eyes away from Chace under a pile of kids she went on, “I get him. He’s hot. He’s the kinda hot a woman would forgive a lot of ass**le, he’s that kinda hot. But he’s that kinda hot without the ass**le part which is a plain miracle. So you giving it up to him, baby sister, I get it.” My eyes went back to her and she was grinning at me like a lunatic as she finished with emphasis, “Totally.”

I looked back toward Chace who had managed to untangle himself from the pile of kids and was standing. But he had Robbie dangling down his back with his arms around Chace’s neck, giggling his behind off and Jarot under his arm, shouting through his own giggles, “I’m gonna be a cop like Uncle Chace and arrest a bunch of bad people!”

My belly melted, my heart flipped and I whispered, “I hope we have all boys.”

“Oh no,” Liza whispered back. “Man like that, you’ve got to give him a princess.”

This thought made my belly melt more, my heart flipped then flopped and my eyes went to my sister.

“A princess,” I breathed.

“Another one,” she said gently then lifted her fingers to twitch my hair. “He’s already got one.”