“Oh, dude. Me too. I could totally go for some waffles right now. Tell you what. Once we choke down—I mean enjoy the food Grandma made, we can totally go get some waffles.”

“Your food is not that gross,” Jerry tells his wife.

“Are you serious?” the Kid asks, and everyone else falls quiet. “Dom, I—”

“It’s going to happen,” Dom says, sounding a little strangled and like he wished he wasn’t doing this in front of an audience. “One day. I know it. Because I really think you’re it for me. And if you’re not ready, that’s okay. I—I hope that you are, but if you’re not—”

Tyson Thompson is the smartest person I know. His IQ is off the charts. He graduated from high school at age fifteen. He went to Dartmouth on a full scholarship. He found himself falling into a place many people couldn’t find their way back out of. But he did, kicking and snarling and clawing until he made things right again.

And yeah, sure, he had help on the way.

But still.

He’s intelligent and sarcastic, and I am so proud of him, even when he acts like an asshole.

That being said, Tyson Thompson is a fucking idiot.

Because instead of landing in the arms of the man he loves, he slams into the screen door that hasn’t been opened in his desperation to get to Dom. He squawks as the screen splits, the door bending in its frame and snapping off.

Most had already taken a step back the moment his feet left the ground, with Creed doing this spectacular little spin away as he covers AJ’s head with his hand.

The Kid ends up on the ground, halfway in and halfway out of the house, the screen door wrapped around him, the metal frame split and lying on top of him.

Silence.

Then from the ground, the Kid says, “What are the chances we never bring this up ever again?”

“Slim to none,” Creed says. “When I am lying on my deathbed, my body collapsing out from under me, eyes milky with cataracts, my teeth falling out of my mouth, I will look up at you and whisper remember that time you were so hard up for Dom that you ran through a screen door. And then I will laugh at you. And then I will die. Welcome home, Kid. Anna, I am having a beer. I just saved our child’s life with my dance moves, and I deserve it. Isn’t that right, AJ? Yes it is. Your daddy is the absolute best at everything he does. Yes he is. Yes he is.”

HE FINDS me later, once the sky has started to color orange and pink above us. There are lamps lit already, and people are talking and laughing. It’s weird, really. Because I know part of me should be sad, that I should be mourning something, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Not yet.

Otter’s inside with Megan. She’s heading back to Eugene and has promised to call us next week to make plans. We told her we’d still act surprised when the clinic called us so she won’t get in trouble. “I’m a good actor,” I’d told her, while Otter had laughed next to me.

And then the Kid is sitting next to me, our bare feet in the grass, toes digging in. It’s a little startling, having him here again at my side. I don’t know that I’ve quite reconciled having him back yet. I’d just gotten used to him being gone, however hard it’d been. But he’s here now, and it’s good. It’s real good.

“Where’s your shadow?”

“Inside,” he says, picking at a blade of grass. “Anna told her that if she’s going to be part of this family, she’ll need to learn to hold a baby.”

“She’s okay with that?”

“The baby? No. Absolutely not. She told Anna that babies are disgusting and that if AJ leaks on her, she’ll sell him on the black market.”

That… sounds like someone who is related to us. Dammit. “And Anna said….”

“She just laughed and said she’s obviously related to you and me.”

“I wasn’t talking about the baby, though.”

He looks over at me, our shoulders brushing together. “I don’t know how she feels yet. It’s… a lot, even for me. So I can’t imagine how it’s going to be for her.”

“I can imagine.”

“Are you sure we can do this?”

“Pretty sure. We’ve done it before.”

“Things are different now, though.”

Tags: T.J. Klune The Seafare Chronicles Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net