Crashed(book three)(213)

The ones I can’t imagine living a lifetime without.

The giggles stop as a pair of green eyes look up at me from beneath dark lashes, freckles on his scrunched nose dusted with flour, and a lopsided smirk on his lips. He just looks at me, gauging if I’m going to get upset at the mess he obviously played a part in.

Then violet eyes look up at me, that soft smile, on those lips I love, directed straight at me. And I silently marvel at how that simple smile gets me every f*cking time, no matter how many years have passed. It has me wanting to pull her into my arms, share all my secrets, and f*ck her senseless simultaneously.

Her voodoo powers still in full f*cking effect.

And f*ck if I’d want it any other way.

I fight the smile creeping onto my lips because I’m the biggest f*cking softie when it comes to him—a fact I deny regularly—and try to act tough. “What’s going on here?” I ask, stepping into the room as Rylee pats her hands together and a plume of flour flies into the air like a dust cloud around her, causing them to erupt into another fit of giggles.

I walk over to them, flour coating the soles of my bare feet, and squat down beside them. My eyes dart back and forth over them before I reach out and place a dot of flour on his nose with my finger. “Looks like you guys made quite a mess,” I say, trying to play the part of disciplinarian but failing miserably.

“Well thanks, Captain Obvious!” he giggles at me, sarcasm in full swing.

“Ace Thomas!” Ry reprimands our son, but his words have already knocked me on my ass.

I look at him, search his face over and over, studying it like a f*cking road map to see if he has any clue, any goddamn inkling what he’s just said to me, but there’s nothing looking back at me but mischievous green eyes and a heart-breaking smile. My spitting image.

“Hey?”

That telephone-sex rasp of a voice pulls me back from flashes of plastic helicopters, superhero Band-aids covering an index finger, and the sound of thwacking. Thoughts I don’t really remember but that seem clear as f*cking day somehow. I shake my head and try to clear out the confusion before I look over to her. “Yeah?”

“You okay?” She reaches out, touches my cheek, and stares at me.

And then he starts giggling, breaking the thoughts holding me hostage. He points to the flour she’s now transferred to my own cheek. “What?” I growl in a monster voice, causing the almost six year old to squeal like a little girl as my fingers reach out to tickle him.

“You’re a flour monster too now!” he says between panted breaths as he tries to squirm away from me.

Our tickle fest lasts for a few more seconds as I let him escape, chase him, and then hug him. And he wiggles for a bit more before I feel his arms slide around my neck and hold on tight.

Those tiny arms pack the biggest punch of all because they hold everything I am in their f*cking hands. I take a moment and breathe him in—little boy, flour, and a bit of Ry’s vanilla all mixed in one—and close my eyes.

I guess it was in the cards after all.

Fuck me running.

He saved me.

Then. And now.

Just like his mother did.

I feel her hand on my back, feel her lips press against my shoulder, and open my eyes to look at her—my whole f*cking alphabet—and smile.

“I think our flour monster here needs to take a quick bath before dinner,” she says.

“Nah.” I reach up to ruffle his hair, flour flying again. “Nothing a cannonball in the pool won’t wash off, right, Ace?”

He shouts out a “Woohoo!” and gives me a high five before running out of the kitchen at full speed. I watch him run and jump into pool, Zander yelping as the splash soaks him.