Follow Me Back (Fight for Me 2)

She ran her fingers through my hair. “Figured as much. I knew you were trouble the first time I saw you.”

I pecked her mouth again. “I’ll swing by later, if that’s okay? Check up on Evan?”

Her expression grew soft. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

“Why don’t you try to get some more rest? Yesterday was a long day.”

She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth, gave a nod. “Okay.”

“Okay,” I told her in encouragement before I straightened. Wavered.

Looked around her room, not really wanting to leave but knowing I needed to.

She was right.

We had to be careful with Evan. Their lives were riddled with complications, and I definitely didn’t want to make a single one of them worse.

I headed for her door where I slowly and quietly released the lock. The door barely creaked when I opened it. I tiptoed out, leaving it open a crack behind me, heading for the door.

I froze when I saw the mess of red hair sticking up all over the place from over the top of the couch.

I wondered if it’d make me a horrible person if I tried to sneak out, taking advantage of his disability that way.

But he’d already noticed the movement, anyway. His eyes keen and knowing, the kid always picking up on more than I thought he would.

He scrambled from the couch, going for the pad that was on the coffee table like he’d been waiting for me.

Furiously, he scratched something on the top sheet, and I slowly eased around to the front of the couch. I sank down onto the edge of it, the coward’s side of me wanting to bolt.

Somehow sitting there made me feel like I was fifteen and had been caught sneaking out the window of my girlfriend’s bedroom in the middle of the night, her dad standing with a shotgun on the lawn, waiting for me.

Which was ridiculous.

Or not.

Because my eyes bugged out of my damned head when I saw what he’d written.

Did you and my mom do it?

Evan’s green eyes were hard and demanding behind his thick-rimmed glasses, his demeanor a little mad when he shoved it at me.

I roughed my palm over my face. Apparently, that feeling hadn’t been so off base.

Warily, I eyed him, watching him carefully when I took the pen and wrote out a response.

How do you know what that is?

He seemed annoyed when he snatched it back.

I’m 8. Almost 9.

“Exactly,” I said, knowing he was reading my lips.

He scribbled more.

Do you even watch TV?

A disbelieving laugh jolted free, nerves and caution and unease.

He scribbled again.

Did you sleep in her bed?

How the hell was I supposed to answer that? I didn’t want to lie. Fuck, I didn’t want to lie to this kid.

Because I saw it all over him.

He thought he was the one who was supposed to be protecting his mom.

Looking out for her.

The man of the house.

And I didn’t think he really knew exactly what he was asking me, but I knew it was wholly important to him.

My chest tightened, and I swallowed around the lump in my throat, leaned over, watching him as I wrote.

That’s private between your mom and me.

I knew in his expression that answer brought him to his conclusion.

In a flash, he was on his feet in front of me.

Tears of anger and frustration glistened in his eyes when his hands frantically signed.

No. I couldn’t read it.

But I knew exactly what he said.

BUT DO YOU LOVE HER?

Everything clenched and crushed, and I was rubbing my mouth again, dropping my hand to make sure he could see.

“It’s complicated, Evan,” I said.

He was back to the pad, the pen cutting deep into the paper.

You have to love her if you live here. That’s the rule.

And God, he was so innocent and wise. Smarter than I was. Seeing the world so simply.

I reached out and grabbed him by the outside of the shoulders, dragging him a step toward me, wishing with all of me he could hear me. That I could communicate with him better. That I could make him understand something that I didn’t fully understand, either.

“I care about your mom, Evan. I care about her so much. And I care about you. Okay?”

Without warning, his tears were running free, and I had him in my arms, hugging him against me.

I suddenly realized so many things about those complications that Hope had warned me about.

This kid and his mom had been through hell, and he was terrified of a man taking them there again. I pulled back, dried his eyes. “I won’t hurt her.”

He swiped his forearm under his nose. “Promise,” he said. His lips formed the word, but the sound he forced from his throat was unintelligible.

But I heard.

I heard.

“I promise.”

He stared at me for a beat before he nodded. OK.

Okay.

I huffed out a breath, hit with a distinct rush of relief.