Hold on Tight (Sea Breeze #8)(41)

“Um, you two can go ahead and eat. I’ve already eaten, and I’m going to go take a soak in the tub. Enjoy your visit.”

Or maybe not. She was escaping. I didn’t want her to escape. I wanted to hear her laugh and see her eyes light up. I also wanted to make her smile. And see her eat. Dammit.

“You don’t like burgers?” I asked, trying to think of a way to keep her in here.

“She loves ’em,” Micah offered.

“I got you the best,” I told her.

She looked like she wanted some but was fighting it. Was it because she couldn’t look at me? I didn’t like that. I wanted her comfortable with me.

“You didn’t eat nothing but a few pretzels with peanut butter, Momma.”

The kid was telling on her. Which was funny and was giving me leverage.

“You don’t have to eat the whole thing, just eat some. I know you don’t eat a lot.”

Micah looked up at me and frowned. “Yeah, she does! She can eat lots more than me. She normally eats a whole burger, fries, and a piece of pie.”

Then why the hell had she picked at the pizza? Was it really because of the “average” comment? I’d straightened that out already. Hell, after last night she shouldn’t have any concerns around me.

“Gotta keep those curves in place. It’d be a shame for them to disappear,” I told her.

“What curves?” Micah asked.

Her eyes went wide. She looked over at the bags in my hand and let out a sigh, then smiled. “Okay. I’ll eat. It smells delicious.”

Score.

Micah started telling me about his day at school, and I tried like hell to listen to him and not focus on his mother sitting down across from me, eating her burger like it was the best thing she’d ever put in her mouth. She’d clearly been starving, from the way she was eating. I hated that she’d picked at her pizza the other night and had been hungry. All because of my dumbass comment to my mother.

“And Mama T said I could come over to her house and stay the night again soon. We’re out of school Friday and Mama T said I could stay with her ’cause I don’t want to stay at day care. Her and Grandpa Dave’s house is more funner.”

“More fun,” Sienna corrected him.

“Yeah, more fun, and so maybe I could stay the night tomorrow night. I told Momma, but she said she’d have to talk to Mama T first.”

I had no doubt my mother would take Micah any time he wanted her to. My dad, too. When Micah had called him Grandpa Dave the other day, he’d had to leave the room because he’d teared up. My dad wasn’t a crier. Seeing him get emotional like that wasn’t something I was used to. Once again it made me feel like I owed Sienna Roy the world. She’d been alone and scared, but she’d had Dustin’s baby anyway and she’d been a damn good mom. All on her own. Micah was the healing I didn’t think my parents would ever find. Because one young girl was brave enough to be a mother without a family’s support around her.

My chest ached and something fierce settled in. I had to protect this woman. Even if I was protecting her from myself. I wanted her to have nothing but happiness in life. She deserved that. More than anyone else I knew, Sienna Roy deserved the best life had to offer.

And the best wasn’t me.

“And I bet that Momma could go on another date with Mr. Dodge.” Micah’s comment snapped me out of my thoughts.

“Mr. Dodge hasn’t asked me out again, Micah,” Sienna said to her son while setting drinks down in front of us.

“Then he’s an idiot,” I said. The dude had stepped way up out of his league with Sienna.

Sienna laughed. “I think he might have seen a side of me he wasn’t crazy about.”

She was referring to our argument in the parking lot. She’d been all fired up and gorgeous that night. I couldn’t even remember it fondly, though, because the memory of my hurting her arm was too painful. I hated myself for that.

“Then Uncle Dewayne can take you out on a date. You think Momma is pretty, don’t you?” Micah said, and I watched Sienna freeze.

A panicked look came over her face, and then she looked at me. I wasn’t sure what to say to the kid. I thought his momma was gorgeous, but I didn’t think saying that would help get him off this idea.

“Um, well, see, Uncle Dewayne is family. You don’t date family,” Sienna said to Micah, and took a seat across from him.

Micah frowned, then shrugged. Luckily, he let it go while he took a bite of his burger.

“How’s the mac ’n’ cheese burger?” I asked him, wanting to ease the sudden awkward silence.

Micah gave me a thumbs-up.

“I can’t believe you got them to put mac ’n’ cheese on the burger,” Sienna said with an amused smile.

“My boy wants a mac ’n’ cheese burger, he’s gonna get one,” I told her.

There was a flash of something in her eyes, and then she looked down at her own burger and studied it a moment before she picked it up and bit into it.

I wasn’t sure what I’d said, but she got quiet after that. Micah didn’t. He started telling me all about the Heat’s lineup this year and how they were going to beat each team. Or how LeBron James was going to beat each team. I didn’t have anything to add to the conversation because basketball had never been my sport. But I listened.