Tipping his head back, he grinned up at me, tears still slowly trailing their way down his cheeks.
“Mom will get pissed at me for swearing again, but you’re the shit, Alex.”
“After hearing Mrs. C. say that, he’ll be getting a big head, baby,” Evie laughed through her sniffling from the front. “Another life lesson, never let someone’s ego bloat so much that they can’t fit their head in a helmet. You never know when they’re going to need to wear one in an emergency.”
“Noted.”
Dipping my head to make eye contact with him again, I asked, “You letting what I’ve said soak in?” When he nodded, I blew out a breath.
“Good, because next time, I don’t mind getting everyone behind me to give you compliments. Sometimes we need people to bloat our egos so that we can’t fit on a helmet, ‘cause those same people will be the ones who act as our shields if we ever need one.”
I saw Evie’s head snap around to look at me out of the corner of my eye, the full weight of what I was saying registering with her immediately, but it was Cody’s reaction that I was most concerned with. He wasn’t as quick as his mom, but it didn’t take him much longer after her.
Yeah, I’d be his helmet and his shield if/when he needed one.
Not saying a word, he hugged me tightly and held on for a moment.
Wanting to lighten the mood again, I added, “We’ll just put DB in front of us and Hurst Townsend in front of him so that we don’t get the full impact. They can be our crash test dummies.”
Once we got back on the road, I stayed quiet and let them talk, only speaking when they asked me something or I had something to add.
The whole time I mentally pictured my fist hitting Neil’s face—repeatedly—or him sitting on a pineapple with no pants on. Obviously, I didn’t want to imagine him naked so I kind of blurred the area out in the image. He wasn’t a man anyway, so it didn’t take a lot of blurring—a real man wouldn’t act the way he had.
I also began to make plans. There was going to be an argument at some point, be it over the phone, in person, or legally, about Cody seeing his dad again, but until it became a huge issue, he would need TLC and time for him to see how appreciated and loved he was.
I could give him that, and I’d hold Evie’s hand and be her strength through the rest of it.
It was as we pulled onto the street that I saw how many people were waiting for us. In the couple of hours it’d taken us to get back, they’d hung a massive banner outside Evie’s house that said Welcome Home, Cody! And there was a sign on her door that read Fuck off today and welcome to tomorrow. Donuts inside.
Seeing them as he got out, Cody paused with his hand on the door. “Uh, Mom?” he called. “I think Jacinda and Sayla are inside waiting for us.”
Looking at the cars, I corrected him. “Jacinda, Sayla, DB, Tabby, probably Sheena, Logan and Bex, Raoul, Rose and the twins, Heidi and her daughter, your grandparents, Roque, Maeve, Alejandro, Mark, Garrett, Tamsin, and what looks like Jarrod and Katy to be precise.”
Frowning down at him, I asked, “I didn’t know you were that close to the Kleins?”
“What can I say,” he shrugged bashfully, “everyone loves me.”
Pulling him into me with one hand and shutting his door with the other, I nudged him toward the door. “Damn right, they do. Now go and get your donut.”
Evie caught my hand before I could go through after him, just as a chorus of cheers sounded from inside.
“Thank you so much for everything,” she whispered, pressing her front against mine. “You’re the shit, Alex Bell.”
Kissing her, I smacked her on the ass. “And don’t you forget it.”
She was wrong on that—she and Cody were, and nothing anyone could say would make me change my mind on that.
Chapter Twenty
Evie
With all of the emotions I’d felt after we’d gotten to Cody, it hadn’t hit me until later that he’d referred to Alex as my boyfriend. And he’d been perfectly fine about it, too.
His welcome home was incredible and almost instantly lifted his spirits and mood. They’d planned a barbecue for later, and Cody had eaten some donuts for his breakfast—bringing me two of the ones I loved—which he said fixed what was broken.
Looking down into my empty cup, I went to get some more coffee while I texted Neil to let him know what’d happened with Cody.
His reply had me seeing red, though.
Neil: Oh.
Oh? Fucking ‘oh’ was all he had to say?
The men had sequestered Cody in the corner, discussing something that had him smiling and his attention rapt on them. That was probably just as well because the second I saw the reply, I was storming to get my keys, adamant I would be the one who went and kicked Neil’s ass, not the crowd Alex had offered Cody.