Leaning forward, I rest my head against her shins and close my eyes. “I know.”
Goose bumps shoot up along my skin the instant her fingers ease into my hair. It’s the kindest touch I have felt since Austin died. She pauses when I shiver, but I don’t say anything because I don’t want her to stop. Can this be that dream that we don’t want to wake from? Can this be that moment we try to find every time we close our eyes to escape our reality?
“I should get back in there in case she wakes up.”
I lift my head and stand, quickly turning away from her so she doesn’t see how her touch cut me back open, making all my old wounds bleed again. “Yeah, you probably should.” I wipe my eyes and grab my blanket, giving it a shake out because I need to look preoccupied doing something other than looking at her with my longing gaze and chest wide open.
Her retreating steps stop, and I pause my motions with my back still to her.
“Emmett?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being in my corner.”
Swallowing my pride, my pain, and a lifetime of emotions, I nod several times. “Always.”
THEN
“I go too!” Austin chased me to the back door, wearing his hard hat and vest.
My mini me.
“Not today, buddy. Maybe another day.” I picked him up, and he grabbed his hard hat to keep it from falling off. My nose nestled into his neck.
“Daddy …” He giggled and squirmed from my scruffy face on his skin.
He smelled of bananas and peanut butter from his toast that morning. When his little hand pressed to my face to push me away, I could taste the residual peanut butter. Austin always had a little extra on him.
Extra food.
Extra dirt.
Extra Play-Doh under his fingernails.
Extra toothpaste smeared on his cheeks.
“Such a heartbreaker.” Tatum breezed past me, giving me a wink. She liked good cop bad cop. And with my little guy always wanting to be with me—at work, in the yard, in the shower, by the grill—that made me the bad cop most of the time because I had to say no so often.
Tatum made cookies, took him to the park, and played with him in the pool. Yet despite her efforts to be fun all the time, he still preferred mundane things with me like pulling weeds in the yard or riding in my truck to check on jobsites.
“If you let me hurry up and get to work, I’ll hurry and get my stuff done so we can mow the lawn later?”
“I drive!” he squealed.
“You drive.” I kissed his cheek and set him on his busy little feet. Our yard was big, but not so big that we needed a riding lawn mower. But I bought one just so Austin could help me mow the lawn.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Tatum asked as I opened the door to leave for work before Austin returned for an encore performance of “Take Me To Work, Daddy.”
Before I could answer, her arms wrapped around my neck, and she forced me down for a long kiss. Our kids were used to our PDA, and we loved that it was the norm for them. We hoped they would have a love like ours for themselves someday.
“Thanks for the boner, babe,” I whispered, adjusting myself as she stepped back, rubbing her lips together.
“Your parents said they’d take the kids for the weekend. I told them we had some organizing around the house to do. And the pool needed to be thoroughly cleaned.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I thoroughly cleaned the pool last weekend.”
Tatum frowned at my stupidity, my slow brain.
My eyebrows raised. We weren’t going to organize anything. She made plans to be alone and naked with me. God … I loved her. “Right. Good idea. You have no idea how badly I’ve been craving organization.”
She chuckled. “Go to work. You have a lawn to mow later.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I winked and took off for work with an extra bounce in my step. As I walked out back past the pool, I spotted Austin’s blue soccer ball on the ground. It wasn’t meant for the pool, so I tossed it up onto the deck before continuing to my truck.
My morning continued to shine as we landed two new bids and hired a new welder with a lot of experience.
“You’ve put in over sixty hours this week,” Will informed me as I walked into the office to grab my keys before heading out to lunch.
“Time and a half.” I winked at him because he’d been trying to get me to be salaried for years.
“Go home early. Paint your fence. Swim some laps.”
I chuckled, tossing my keys in the air and catching them. “Clock out.”
Will smirked. “Yes, get off my fucking time clock.”
Not a bad Friday. In fact, it was feeling like the best Friday I’d had in a long time. On my way home, I stopped for a bouquet of flowers—pink roses and lavender—for my beautiful wife. I started to call her after I climbed back into my truck, just to let her know I’d be home early if she wanted to run some errands without the kids. Then I changed my mind since I was only ten minutes from home anyway. Why not surprise her?