“You’re a great father, Devin, but you are a lousy boyfriend,” she said, grabbing her bag.
“Because I don’t want more children? That makes me a lousy boyfriend?” he snapped.
“No, it’s because you were willing to hurt me in order to keep a promise that you never should have made in the first place,” Charlie said, and with that, she walked out.
*-*-*-*
“We’re going to need more pink,” Abbi said, sighing heavily as she glanced from the small cups of paint that their teacher had placed on their table to look around them to see if she could find any more pink paint.
“Charlie doesn’t like pink,” Dustin said, getting up and walked over to the craft station and grabbed the bottle of green paint, her favorite.
“True,” Abbi murmured in agreement as she held the cup of green paint still so that he could pour more into it as Mrs. Greer finished whatever she was doing at her desk to walk back in front of the class, carrying a large white picture frame in one hand and a white flower pot in the other.
“Is everyone ready to make their Mother’s Day gift?” she asked with a warm smile as Dustin shared a look with his sister because they were more than ready.
They’d been making plans for the past few weeks since their teacher announced that they were going to need ten dollars each so that they could make a Mother’s Day gift this year. As soon as their father picked them up that day, they’d asked and they’d kept on asking until they got home and he gave them each ten dollars to bring to school.
As soon as he had the money, Dustin had placed it in an envelope that he’d helped himself to from his Daddy’s office, sealed it, and put it in his backpack. To make sure that he didn’t lose it, he hid his backpack beneath his pillow and held onto it all night as he slept. The next morning, he’d put the backpack on and refused to take it off until he was finally at school and could hand Mrs. Greer his envelope and since then…
He’d been counting down the days.
Mother’s Day wasn’t for a few more weeks, but he wanted to be ready. He’d already broken his piggy bank and gave his father all his money and asked him to order Charlie’s favorite chocolates from Sarris Candies because he remembered how much she liked them at Valentine’s Day. He was also planning on getting her a teddy bear that Abbi already promised not to take and he was going to make her favorite breakfast and surprise her with it.
This Mother’s Day was going to be perfect.
He’d made sure of it.
“Maybe we should get her another bunny,” Abbi said, making his lips twitch.
“She wants a turtle,” Dustin reminded her, still wondering how she was going to manage to get one without Daddy getting mad.
Then again, since Daddy loved Charlie almost as much as they did, she could probably get away with it. To be honest, he wouldn’t mind another dog, Dustin thought as he watched Mrs. Greer push the cart that was filled with the picture frames and flowerpots that they were supposed to paint.
They were going to need more green, Dustin decided as he squeezed more paint into his cup.
“Which one do you want to do?” Abbi asked.
“The frame,” he said with a firm nod because he had the perfect picture to put in it.
“I’m going to have to get flowers then,” Abbi said, nodding thoughtfully as they watched the cart finally make its way to their table.
When Mrs. Greer reached into the box to grab his picture frame, he couldn’t help but smile only…
It wasn’t a frame.
“So,” Mrs. Greer said, smiling warmly as she placed two white coffee mugs on the table in front of them, “I thought that since you would be celebrating Mother’s Day with your father that it would be nice to make him something really special.”
“What?” Dustin said, feeling his stomach drop as he glanced from the coffee mug that he didn’t want to paint to the other tables and watched as everyone else started painting their Mother’s Day gifts for their mothers.
“I just thought that your dad would probably like this more than a flowerpot or a picture frame,” Mrs. Greer said, drawing his attention back to the mug.
“I don’t want to paint a mug,” he said, shaking his head as he reached over and pushed the mug away while Abbi stood there, looking like she was going to cry.
“Dustin-”
“I want to make a Mother’s Day gift for my mommy,” he said, gesturing to her cart.
There was a sigh, and then, “Dustin, it’s okay. Not everyone has a mother and that’s nothing to be upset about. You have a really great dad that loves you and I think it would be really nice to-”
“I don’t want to make a mug for my daddy! I want to make a Mother’s Day gift for my mommy!” he yelled, knowing that he was going to be in trouble, but he didn’t care.
He had a mommy and he was going to make her a Mother’s Day gift.
“Dustin, maybe we should-”
“I have a mommy!”
“Shhh, it’s okay,” Mrs. Greer said as she reached for him.
“I have a mommy!” he screamed as he placed his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut, terrified that she was going to tell him that he didn’t have a mother one more time.
Chapter 41
“I don’t want to fucking talk about it,” Devin said as soon as T.J. opened his mouth.
“Fair enough,” his best friend said as Devin grabbed a board and-
“Fuck!” he roared as he threw the board across the room, slamming it into the wall as he clenched his hands into fists, struggling against the urge to put his fist through the wall.
“So…are we still not talking about it?” T.J. murmured, looking thoughtful as Devin grabbed onto the edge of his workbench and slowly exhaled.
“Leave me the fuck alone,” Devin said, glaring down at the scarred surface as he tried to get the image of Charlie’s smile dying when she re
alized that they were never going to have children out of his head.
He should have told her sooner. He should have made sure that she knew what he wanted before he-
“Hey, asshole,” came the greeting that had him turning around and-
Slamming back against his workbench when Ben decked him. Before he realized what was happening, Ben swung again, knocking him on his ass.
“What the hell is your problem?” T.J. yelled, grabbing hold of Ben and trying to drag him back, but the man who normally wore a carefree smile wasn’t done yet.
He grabbed Devin by the shirt, dragged him to his feet, and-
“Son of a bitch!” Ben snapped when Devin returned the favor and decked him, splitting his lip.
“You only get one,” Devin said, wiping the blood off his chin.
“And if you ever make her cry again, I will fucking kill you, do you hear me?” Ben said, getting in his face.
“You have no idea what happened, so I suggest that you get out of my face right now,” Devin bit out.
“I never should have let you near her,” Ben said evenly, but he didn’t move.
“No, you shouldn’t have,” Devin said, because at least they could agree on one thing, he thought as he shoved Ben out of his way and headed for the door, more than fucking done with this day when Ben’s next words stopped him.
“She doesn’t cry anymore, does she?”
“What?” Devin asked as he slowly turned around.
“She doesn’t cry in her sleep anymore, does she?” Ben repeated, wiping the blood of his chin.
“No, she doesn’t,” he found himself saying as he tried to remember the last time that the kids came running into his bedroom because Charlie was crying in her sleep and wouldn’t stop.
“It’s because she feels safe,” Ben said, helping himself to a rag off the bench to wipe the blood off his hand. “It took us a while to figure out, but we realized that Charlie only cried in her sleep when she thought something bad was going to happen. When her grandfather had another heart attack and had to stop visiting, she cried for months, terrified that something was going to happen to him. The same thing happened whenever social services came by and told her that they were still looking for a nice family that would take her away from us.”