I dipped my head so he couldn’t see me smiling, then turned on the burner and placed the frying pan on it.
“Can I get one too?”
My head snapped up. “No!” I blurted at the same time Vic grunted, “No.”
I don’t know why Vic saying “No” too made me all warm and cozy inside, but it did.
“But pleeese.”
As much as I loved that Jackson was asking for something, there was no chance I’d ever let him get a tattoo.
“Vic has lots of them, and he said I should ask for what I want,” he argued.
Oh boy. My gaze flicked to Vic, and his eyes were already locked on me. There was an inferno of intense heat in his gaze, laced with a hint of amusement.
His eyes shifted to my mouth, and I realized I was biting my lip. I released it and swallowed.
“I want to get one like Vic, right here,” Jackson said, pointing at his left forearm.
“I’m really glad you’re asking, Jacks. But a tattoo is out of the question. What happens when you reach my age and don’t like it anymore?” I asked.
“But you’re really old.”
I laughed and Vic grunted. I guess to a six-year-old, I was pretty old.
“But you can go get one, Mom,” he said.
“Yes, but a tattoo should be meaningful to you. Something that is part of you and that you know you’ll want forever ever. And I’m not sure what I’d get.”
“You really love music. You can get a guitar.”
My heart squeezed so tight, it was painful. He knew. My son knew how much I loved music. I mean, he’d seen me play a few times. Not often, though, because I did it at night when he was sleeping. But somehow he’d noticed my passion for music.
Jackson scrunched his nose as he thought about something. He had no awareness of how his words affected me. “I want a dragon. Because I want to be strong and breathe fire and fly whenever I want.”
Vic turned the deadbolt several times to test it, then opened it again. “A dragon is good,” Vic said.
“How about this. If you still want a tattoo when you’re sixteen, I’ll take you to get one.”
Sixteen. It was hard to imagine Jackson being sixteen. “Now, can you set the table, please?” I asked while pouring batter into the hot pan sizzling with butter.
“Okay.”
Vic tested the deadbolt with the key, then picked up his tools and set them outside on the top step. He strode into the kitchen. “Broom still in the hall closet?”
“Yeah.”
Vic got the broom, then swept up the wood shavings by the front door while Jackson set the table and I flipped pancakes. It was domestic. Normal.
Vic came up behind me. My breath hitched and my hand stilled on the spatula I had tucked under a pancake.
“How do you take your coffee?” Vic asked.
I licked my lips. “Black, thanks.”
He moved away, and I heard him open the cupboard above the coffee machine, and then the clink as he set the mug down before the soothing sound of coffee pouring into the mug.
He set the mug beside me. “Thanks,” I barely managed to get past my dry, constricted throat. God, why did I feel like I was burning up inside? Like there were a million tingles shooting through me. Like I was going to fracture if he didn’t touch me. Or was it that I’d fracture if he did?