“I appreciate your looking out for me,” Razor says. “Being there for me at every turn, but I think it’s time you take a step back and focus on you.”
“You’re my brother.” I close my eyes to try to contain the emotion raging within me. “I’ll always have your back.”
“And I’ll always have yours, but I’m leaving next month, and you need to stay here.” His eyes flicker to Caroline, who thankfully is on the other side of the room and has no idea of the drama taking place near the bar.
I never thought twice about the prospect of packing up and leaving town with Razor. It’s what I’ve done: watch over this kid. A guardian angel he never knew he had—until now. “Are you telling me you’re too good for me now?”
He chuckles. “I’ve always been too good for you.”
I can’t help the short, bitter laugh.
“I’m living my life for me now,” Razor says, “and you need to live your life for you. I buried my mom’s ghost, and it’s time you do, too.”
“When did you get so wise?”
“I guess from the years of you talking at me.”
Smartass. Yet I bring the kid in for a hug that includes hard pats on the back. We let go and he shoves my shoulder. “It sucks that every time I come home I’m going to have to talk to my English teacher.”
I can only hope. “Go be young and not stupid, brother.”
He gives me one of his rare smiles and leaves.
A soft and gentle touch on my bicep and I turn my head to see Caroline gazing up at me. “Is that offer for a ride on your bike still available?”
For her? “Anytime.”
I take her hand, and we weave through the crowd so I can take the most beautiful woman on the planet on the ride of her life.
And They All Lived Happily Ever After:
A Pushing the Limits Novella
Chapter 29
Noah
My eyes snap open and my body jerks so abruptly that the bed shakes. After all that I’ve been through in life, I’ve acquired the ability to sleep through fistfights in school, screaming foster fathers, and even gunshots in the crazy neighborhood of the first apartment I shared with Isaiah. But where the harsh world couldn’t break my sleep patterns, the shadow of a three-year-old doing nothing more than staring at me can wake me from a deep sleep with the same dread I’d feel at a clown hovering over the bed with a machete.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” I sit up on my elbows and squint in the darkness to try to make out my son. All I see is his outline and the glint of light reflecting off the plastic eye of the stuffed rabbit held close to his chest.
“I used the bathroom.”
My foggy brain tries to weigh whether or not that means he needs a pull-up change.
“I didn’t pee in bed.”
And there’s the answer. He made it to the bathroom in the middle of the night. “That’s awesome.” And I mean it. Took forever to night train his sister Macie.
“There’s a monster in my room.”
I’m too tired for this. “No, there’s not.”
“Yes, there is.”
Here’s the thing about three-year-olds: they can continue this type of conversation for hours. A doggedness I swear my children inherited from their mother—my wife.
Exhausted from a few late nights due to finishing a project—designing a high-end house, one of many on my growing list of clients—and then from helping Echo clean up after the vomiting hurricane that was kiddo number one this evening, I fall back onto the bed. Damn that pillow feels good, and I’d give a kidney to keep my eyes closed.
“Echo?” I say. She rolls onto her side, away from me, while simultaneously kicking my leg. Hard enough that it should sting, but I’m immune to the action. “It’s your turn.”
“No, it’s not,” comes that sexy groggy voice that still has a way of making me want to wrap my arms around her and kiss her until she’s breathless.
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.”
As I said, doggedness that can go on for hours.
“I put Macie to bed tonight,” I say. That meant four books, two sips of water, three trips to the bathroom, six laps around the dining room table and me falling asleep in her bed as she read book number five to me.
“And after two grueling twelve-hour labors, you sweet-talked in my ear how much you wanted another baby.” She drops her voice to mimic me. “A third baby will be a piece of cake. The labor will be shorter. We have this baby thing down.” She returns to her sexy drowsy tone. “Do I need to remind you of the twenty-four hours of labor followed up by an emergency C-section and then two months of a colicky baby while you travelled three of those weeks for work? And I’m the one Macie threw up on tonight because you were determined to play that stupid jelly bean game with her. I call not my turn for the next four years.”
For people so small, my children can expel horrifying amounts of puke in the span of thirty seconds. Plus, they spew like a lawn sprinkler, that is until you actually deposit them in front of a toilet. That’s when they’re empty.
While I’m exhausted, I can’t argue with Echo’s well-thought-out, two-in-the-morning argument. Makes me wonder how long she’s been forming this speech, and whether I need to step up my game for a planned counterattack.
Tonight, or rather this morning, she wins. Echo has clients tomorrow. After a few years of doing freelance artwork, which she still does on the side, she eventually earned her master’s degree in art therapy. Helping traumatized children is a tough job, but Echo has a gift, and at the end of the day feels she’s making a difference. I believe that, too.
I roll out of bed and swoop Seth into my arms. He lays his red-haired head on my shoulder, and any annoyance that I had from my two a.m. wake-up dissolves.
Our oldest, five-year-old Macie, is headstrong, determined and exudes confidence. So much, it may be possible to bottle it and sell it in bulk at Costco. Her only downfall is she can’t stomach dead-fish-flavored jelly beans. Our baby, Oliver, is only eight months, but he’s as chill as they come. A constant smile on his face, and not counting his first three months, rarely cries.
Seth, though, is the one that yanks out your heart and hands it to you. His soul aches for every lost cat and every puppy without a home, and he’s terrified caterpillars are lonely when they go into their cocoons. If he needs monsters scared away, I’m the man for the job. After all, I’m his dad.
I head down the hallway and take the first door on the right. His nightlight is on and it gives his room a soft glow. I lay him down in his toddler bed, a gift from my best friend: a red racecar made out of thick plastic that holds his tiny mattress. Even though it’s a shrunken version of a twin bed, my son looks small as I pull the blanket over his pajama-clad body.
I then do the dad thing—check under the bed, open and close the closet doors and mock a ninja chop when sneaking a peek behind the door, which earns me a fit of giggles from the bed.
Content that his room is safe, Seth rolls onto his back and stares at the colorful glow-in-the dark stars hand-painted by Echo. Then his eyes roam over the walls and across the mural of trees, grass, butterflies and bunnies. Once again, painted by Echo with some help from Seth and Macie and a handprint from Oliver.