Soaring (Magdalene #2)(167)

He still was in danger.

Having him and my son near a blazing inferno?

No way.

“That’d be okay with me,” I chirped.

Mickey studied me, his lips twitched, he knew it wasn’t okay with me but he also knew—for me to give my son indication I knew he was growing into a man—it had to be.

He looked back to Auden. “Then all I gotta do is clear it with the chief, make sure the guys don’t mind, which they won’t, we’ve done it before, and we’ll set it up.”

“Totally cool,” Auden said like it was. Absolutely.

“Just sayin’, buddy,” Mickey started, his voice lower to add weight to his words. “We’d dig you hanging around. But we get a call and you do ride along, you gotta do what you’re told and stay clear. You might be there but only to observe. That gonna be okay with you?”

Auden nodded and he couldn’t quite inject the cool.

He was excited.

“Right, then, you want, you can give me your number and when I talk to the chief and clear it with the guys, we’ll plan,” Mickey offered.

“Okay,” Auden replied.

My phone chirped.

My bag was beside me on the nicked, warped, splinters-assured (though I’d never gotten one) picnic table (this being inside the ramshackle building). So I dug my phone out because we were at Tink’s and nothing was rude at Tink’s.

I glanced at the display and smiled.

I dropped the phone back in my purse to reply later and looked at my kids.

“Uncle Lawrie is coming for Thanksgiving,” I announced.

“Awesome!” Auden said excitedly.

“So cool, Mom,” Pippa agreed then asked, “Mercer and Hart coming?”

As the text said, I’ll be there Thanksgiving. Boys with their mom. That was a no.

“Sorry, honey,” I said as a gentle answer.

“Bummer,” she muttered.

“Pip,” Auden snapped again and with that, my attention became acute on them.

They could bicker. They could also fight.

But mostly, my son had a lot of patience with his little sister. She was a girl. Now she was a teenage girl. She could be flighty. She was admittedly a little spoiled (my doing, but she was also daddy’s little girl so Conrad had a hand in that too).

Mostly, she was sweet and kindhearted and her brother knew it.

This was uncharacteristic and I wondered if he was being the way he was for fear of what Mickey would think of her (when she’d really not said anything that could offend Mickey and further, Mickey was a pretty laidback guy and didn’t give any indication he was easily offended).

“What now?” she snapped back.

“I think we’re good with Uncle Lawr,” he chided. “We haven’t seen him in almost a year and a half.”

“I didn’t say we weren’t good with just him,” she retorted. “It’s just if they all came, we could be us. We could be awesome. And we could show them there’s life after divorce, it isn’t all that bad and eventually everyone could end up happy.”

My hand darted out and curled around Mickey’s thigh as I stared at my baby girl.

We could be us. We could be awesome. And we could show them there’s life after divorce, it isn’t all that bad and eventually everyone could end up happy.

I was about to burst into sloppy tears of joy when Mickey’s hand curled around mine and held it as his thigh.

That gave me the strength to draw in breath and control the tears.

But it didn’t stop me from saying, “I love you, baby girl.”

Olympia’s eyes shot to me, her face went soft, her chin started quivering, then she licked her lips and rolled them together before releasing them to say bashfully, “Love you too, Mom.”

I smiled at her and turned my smile to my boy. “Since I’m being gushy, I’ll say I love you too.”

“It okay I don’t look like a dork and get all weepy and say it back?” Auden asked jokingly.

“Yes, if in your memoirs you share with the world your deep adoration for your mother,” I allowed.

“Whatever,” he muttered, but he did it grinning at his burger before he picked it up and took a huge bite, this indication of how much he liked it because wrestling weigh-ins were soon and around that time, things got dicey for Auden to maintain the weight he needed.

Perhaps this was why he was short-tempered with his sister.

Having experience with Auden and his weigh-ins, I put it down to that.

Back on good footing with my kids, the rest of the night went great. Even when we got back and the kids talked Mickey into “hanging out awhile” whereupon Pippa took that opportunity to point out we’d all be a lot more comfortable if we had another chair up there. Auden didn’t even rise to the bait. But this could be because we sat comfortably with Auden in what had become my chair, Pippa at one end of the couch, me in the middle, Mickey at the other end.

Mickey and I even did some minor cuddling and the kids didn’t blink an eye.

However, with the kids there and the stained glass window in the door, we only got to whisper goodnights and give lip touches rather than make out, which was disappointing.

That was the only disappointment. The rest was all good. We all had enjoyed it. And Pippa had even asked Mickey back around so she could cook for him.