Damn, he’s right. “You’re a clever kid, Miles.”
He makes a face. “Yeah, I’m not a kid. I’m twelve now.”
Yeah. “So it would be cool with you if I asked Tessa to marry me and had kids with her?”
“Whoa. Marry her?”
I frown. “Is that a problem?”
“Will I have, like, to wear a tuxedo and shit for the wedding?”
“Do you want to?”
“Hell, no.”
“Language,” I say, grinning when he grimaces. “So a tuxedo is a no-no, huh?”
He nods solemnly.
“You’d look good in a tuxedo, you know, with a bow tie and—”
“You’re shitting me.”
I snicker—and hey, how can I stop my brother from swearing when I’m doing it all the damn time? “Yeah, I am. No tuxedos necessary. I swear.”
“On your balls.”
I choke on that and fight the urge to cover them, just in case. “On my… balls. Sure.”
“Then it’s fine with me,” he says. “If she says yes.”
Yeah. That’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it? The hardest task. Asking her. Proposing to her.
Or accepting that maybe I shouldn’t.
***
“Tomorrow,” Asher is saying through the phone that’s precariously perched between my cheek and shoulder as I hurry through the Dane County Regional Airport. “We’re going tomorrow morning, to look for the house in Wausau. Can you make it?”
“I guess.” I’m holding Teo tightly by the hand and his backpack with the other. Miles is trailing behind us, and I turn from time to time to make sure he hasn’t strayed. “I’ll have to see if Tessa can have the kids, or…”
What am I thinking? She’ll probably have to go to work.
I can’t count on her to stay home.
And I shouldn’t expect it.
“Listen, Auds and Megan have already said they could babysit,” Asher says. “You could bring your brothers over.”
“That works.” At least I hope Miles won’t mind. I keep leaving them right and left to study and work, and now to investigate this story with Zane.
What these kids need is parents. A steady, normal family, not a busy fucker like me whose idea of a gentle touch is fucking his girlfriend into the kitchen counter and marking her neck with his teeth.
Shit.
“Dylan, you there?” Asher’s tinny voice in my ear jerks me back to the present.
“Yeah.”