Feels like Home (Lake Fisher 2)

“Your mom marched over to his parents and told them what he’d done. And when they acted like they didn’t really care how he acted, she waited until after dark, snuck over to his house, and let the air out of his bike tires to teach him a lesson.” I look at her and see that she is staring at me, absolutely fascinated by the story. “I told you that your mom was fierce.”

“I wish she hadn’t died,” she says quietly.

“Me too, kiddo. Me too.” Miles starts to fidget, which either means he’s hungry, sleepy, or he needs a diaper change. Now I just have to figure out which one. I lift him up so his butt is next to my nose and give it a sniff. He smells like shit. “I’ll give you a dollar if you’ll change his diaper,” I say to Sam.

“Not a chance, dude,” she replies.

I chuckle. “It was worth a shot.”

“No, it really wasn’t,” she shoots back at me.

“See?” I tell her. “You’re more like your mother than I ever thought.”

“I’m going to go set up the cat’s litter box and his food bowls.” She grabs the bags we left on the porch when we sat down, and she goes into the house, taking her kitten with her.

“She’s so much like Lynda that sometimes it hurts to look at her,” Aaron says as he approaches from around the corner. He slowly trudges up the steps and sits down next to me. “She got all the sass, and Kerry-Anne got all the sweetness.”

“And Miles got the smelly butt.” I hold him out in Aaron’s direction, and he takes him from me.

“So I get you back when you’re poopy, huh?” Aaron buries his face against Miles’s stomach and blows a raspberry, which makes the little arms and legs flail as he tries to grab handfuls of Aaron’s hair.

“He’s probably ready for a nap. He’s been up since around six thirty.”

“I heard you’ve been up even longer than that,” Aaron says, but he’s really not paying attention to me. He has it all on Miles. “Thanks for watching him during the night.”

I laugh out loud. “Mr. Jacobson came over all freaking out and saying, ‘It woke up!’ I figured I was obligated to help.” I reach over and touch the top of the baby ‘s soft head. “Me and this little guy have a deal. As long as he doesn’t cry, I won’t either. It seems to be working so far.”

“He agreed to this arrangement?”

“He did. And so far, he’s held up his end of the bargain.”

“Well, thank you for spending so much time with him. I know you’re not used to having babies around.”

“We had one once,” I admit. I almost want to take the words back because they hang there in the air between us, tangible and real. “But only for a few days.”

Aaron finally looks at me. “What?”

“We signed up to be foster parents. Our first placement was a three-month-old baby.”

His surprised gaze turns into a mock glare. “How did I not know this?”

I give him a shrug. “Bess didn’t want to say anything in case it didn’t work out. And the goal with foster parenting is reunification with the parental figure. We knew that going into it. It still stung a little when they took him back, I’m not going to lie about it.” It was harder on me than on Bess. Bess had kept her distance, only holding him when she had to. I, on the other hand, had fallen head over heels for the little guy right away. I’d even tried to check on him after he went back to his home, and we’re not really supposed to do that.

“Did you foster again?”

I shake my head. Bess had refused to do it again. “No, we never did.”

“Do you think it would have fixed you two…if you’d had a baby?”

“I sincerely doubt that having a baby with her would have made her like me any more than she already did.”

“Babies have a way of making life harder and yet sweeter all at the same time.” He grimaces. “Speaking of sweet, this one needs a diaper.”

“Better get on that.”

“I’ll give you a dollar if you’ll do it,” he says, which makes me laugh.

“Not a chance, dude,” I say, repeating what Sam had just said to me.