“You’ll be there soon,” Daisy tells her. “And me, Karen, and Sam are going to keep you company tomorrow while the boys go be rock stars.” She looks over at me. “Where is Sam?”
“She had an interview,” I say, automatically checking my phone to see if I missed a call. “She’s going to come over after. Wyatt has soccer and then he’s going to a friend’s house.”
“So he’s settling in nicely?” Paige asks. I shove down the thread of unease her words cause. Settling in isn’t at all how I would describe it. The kid’s made a few friends and seems to like his new soccer team, but the unusual behavior issues and attitude haven’t gotten any better. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s getting worse.
“He’ll adjust,” Paige says, her eyes on my face, and I’m struck, not for the first time, by how intuitive she is. By how much she genuinely cares for her friends. Feeling a lump in my throat, I lean forward and kiss her cheek again, so damn relieved that she’s here, smiling, in this hospital bed, surrounded by the people she loves, making the experience easier for every one of us with her attitude. Just like she always does.
She pats my cheek as I pull away. “Cash,” she says, her voice serious. “How comfortable are you with a nail polish brush?”
I raise my eyebrows. “I wouldn’t know.”
“I think you need some practice. When Sam’s belly gets big, she won’t be able to paint her own toenails.”
“That’s true,” Daisy says. “Daltrey used to paint my nails all the time when I was pregnant.”
“You should practice on me,” Paige says, pulling her feet out from under the pink blanket and wiggling her toes. “Look at how sad and chipped my paint is.”
“Paige,” I say, ready to argue, but she widens her eyes, looking innocent.
“Cash,” she says in that same serious voice. “I almost died.”
“Paige,” Karen warns, but I only laugh, pulling my leather jacket off.
“All right. Tell me what to do.”
When Reed joins us ten minutes later, looking slightly less desperate than the last time I laid eyes on him, Paige is happily twisting the sides of Lennon’s hair into some complicated French braid thing while I spread sparkly purple polish over her toenails (she made me redo my first three attempts before she was satisfied with the steadiness of my hands).
“What,” he says, looking around the room with dark eyes, his jaw set and tight, “is going on in here?”
Paige looks nervous for a moment as Reed glowers at us, but then she straightens her shoulders, chin high in the air. “We’re enjoying life,” she says firmly.
Reed holds her gaze for a long moment before he finally smiles. “I thought I was the only one who’s hair you braided,” he says.
“You can take my place anytime you’re ready,” Lennon mutters, wincing as she pulls on a strand of his hair.
“Nah,” Reed says, slipping his jacket off as he walks towards the bed to kiss the top of Paige’s head. “You look pretty, Len.”
“Thanks,” Lennon says. “I’m thinking I should wear it like this for the next show.”
Paige is looking up at Reed, concern etched on her face. “You don’t look like you rested that much,” she accuses.
“I ran an errand instead,” he tells her, not meeting her eyes. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
She nods, squeezing his hand. “Have a mimosa.” When his expression turns stony again she hurries to add, “they’re non-alcoholic.”
Reed looks down at where I’m still painting Paige’s nails. “I’m not sure I like this,” he mutters. “It seems way too personal.”
“No need to worry,” I say, sticking out my tongue a little in concentration. “I don’t have a foot fetish.”
“All right,” Reed says, grabbing my arm and causing me to smear the pinky toe. “That’s enough of that.”
“Hey,” I complain. “You made me mess up!”
“You’re talking about fetishes while you’re touching my girlfriend.”
Paige rolls her eyes but my phone rings before she can tell Reed off. I hand my brother the jar of nail polish. “You’re welcome to take over,” I say, pulling out my cell. I frown at the unknown number. “I better get this.”
I take the phone over to the corner while Paige and Reed start to argue about Reed’s “patriarchal caveman tendencies.”
“Hello?”
“Mr. Ransome?” an unfamiliar man asks.
“Yes, this is Cash Ransome.”
“Mr. Ransome, this is Officer Ruiz. I’m with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department. I’m afraid we have a problem with your girlfriend’s son, Wyatt? We haven’t been able to reach Mrs. Warner—”
“Is he okay?” I ask, my stomach settling somewhere near my ankles. Wyatt couldn’t be hurt, he couldn’t—
“He’s fine,” the officer says. “But he and a friend got themselves into some trouble this afternoon and we need someone to come down to the station to talk.”
As the officer details what had happened, I listen in disbelief. By the time I’ve ended the call, my mouth is hanging open.
“What’s wrong?” Daisy asks, moving toward me.
“Wyatt is at the sheriff’s station,” I say, still not believing the words even as they leave my mouth. “Him and his friend got caught throwing rocks at car windows.”
I can tell the rest of them are as shocked as I feel. “Wyatt did that?” Lennon finally asks. “That doesn’t sound like him.”
“What the hell?” I mutter, rubbing my hands over my face. I can’t believe this. Wyatt is a good kid, the best kid. He doesn’t do stuff like this. I press Sam’s contact, cursing again when it goes straight to voicemail. “I guess I have to go get him,” I say. “Damn it. What am I going to say to the police?” I look up at them, my eyes narrowing as I see Lennon wiping a smile from his face. “What?”
“Nothing,” Lennon says quickly, but his eyes are amused. “It’s just…you know. Ironic. That you’re going to the police station to pick up a misbehaving kid. You.” At what I’m sure is a murderous look on my face, Lennon holds up his hands. “But this is definitely not the time to point that out so I’m going to shut up now.”
I grab my jacket. “If Sam comes here before checking her messages have her call me,” I say, dropping a kiss on Paige’s head. “Sorry to run.”
“I’m fine,” she says, waving her hands. “I just hope he’s okay.”
“Yeah,” I say grimly. “Me too.”
* * *
I find Wyatt sitting in a plastic chair in Officer Ruiz’s office, arms crossed over his chest, face drawn and tight.
“Wyatt,” I say, relief flooding my stomach at the sight of the kid, whole and unharmed. Though the officer told me over the phone that Wyatt wasn’t hurt, it still made me sick with worry to walk into the sheriff’s station, knowing he was there, alone. Probably scared.
Wyatt doesn’t look too scared now. He glares at me. “Where’s my mom?”
I wince. What the hell is going on? This glaring, snapping kid isn’t Wyatt. “She has her interview right now.”
His face falls, something like guilt shining in his eyes before he visibly hardens his expression.
“You’re not a legal guardian?” Ruiz asks.
“No. His mother is my girlfriend. I have a consent form, to get him from school and get him medical care and stuff…” I reach into my wallet, pulling out the form Sam had drawn up months ago and handing it to the officer. “We live together,” I offer.
He reads over the form before looking up at me, and then at Wyatt. “I can release him to you,” he says, “but we’re going to need to meet with his guardian. There was damage done. There might be charges—”
“He’s nine!” I cry, taking a deep breath when the officer glares at me. “Sorry,” I say in a more normal tone. “I just…that shouldn’t be necessary, should it?”
“There are juvenile courts for cases like this,” he says, looking sternly at Wyatt, who suddenly seem
s very young and very, very scared. I don’t know if the officer is trying to scare the kid or if this is something we actually need to worry about. “Regardless, we’ll need to set up a meeting with Wyatt and his mother as soon as possible to discuss the issue and the consequences.”
“I can have her call this afternoon,” I say. Wyatt won’t meet my eyes.
Officer Ruiz takes my information, makes me fill out about a dozen forms, and then gives Wyatt a lecture about property and consequences before he lets us go. By the time we finally walk through the glass doors of the station, Wyatt is visibly trembling.
“Buddy,” I say as we walk across the parking lot. I place a hand on Wyatt’s shoulder. “Are you—”
“I don’t want to talk to you!” he snaps, pulling away. I withdraw my hand, stung.
“That’s fine,” I say, my voice gruff. “Let’s just go home.”
He mutters something I can’t hear before climbing into the back seat of my Porsche. He doesn’t say a word the entire way home. I feel overwhelmed and confused—I have no idea what in the hell I’m supposed to do. Should I just wait for Sam to get home and let her talk to Wyatt? That seems pretty cowardly. On the other hand, Wyatt is clearly struggling with something bigger than we realized, and he seems pretty determined not to talk to me about it. I have no idea if this is about the baby or the move or leaving his grandparents but it’s obvious something is very wrong.
I still haven’t made up my mind by the time we reach the house, but Wyatt is out of the car and running up the steps to the front door before I even have my seatbelt off.
“Hey,” I call, hurrying after him. Wyatt is punching in the code, pushing the door open when I finally reach the porch. “Wyatt! Wait.”
Wyatt doesn’t wait. He stomps into the house, determinedly not looking at me.
“Wyatt.”
He finally stops, but he doesn’t turn. I stare at the kid’s set shoulders, tension radiating off of him. “You wanna tell me what happened?”
Fuck. I sound just like my father on any of the many occasions when I screwed up. Lennon had a point—this is ironic as hell. I take a deep breath and try again. “I’m really worried about you right now, buddy. Throwing rocks? That’s not like you.”
Wyatt’s shoulders droop. “We were just having fun.”
I come around the boy so I can see his face, crouching down so we’re on the same level. “Fun? Wyatt, you don’t do stuff like that for fun. You damaged a car. You could have hurt someone.”
His face falls and there’s a stab of pain in my chest. I hate that look on his face, hate knowing that something’s wrong. Hate not having any idea what in the hell I’m supposed to do about it.
“Please talk to me.”
Wyatt’s expression transforms into something angry, unfamiliar. “No. I’m not talking to you.”
I somehow manage to keep an even expression as I take in the unfamiliar rage on the little boy’s face. “Fine,” I say, surprised I’m able to keep my voice steady. “Then you can go up to your room until you’re ready to discuss this. No video games. No comic books.”
“Fine.” He’s already turning and stomping towards the stairs.
I stare after him, the sick feeling in my stomach growing. I pull out my phone, dialing Sam again. She doesn’t answer. Either her interview is going really well, or she forgot to turn her phone back on after leaving it. Either way, I feel completely out of my element. I walk to the kitchen, pouring some water when what I really want is whiskey, and try to figure out what to do. I’ve almost made up my mind to call Dad for advice when I hear a loud crash from the second floor, directly over my head. Shit.
I take the stairs two at a time, peeking into Wyatt’s room when I reach the top. Empty. I cross the hall to a spare room we’ve been using as a makeshift office/storage space. Wyatt stands in the middle of the room, breathing heavily, face red. At his feet is one of my guitars, a vintage Martin D-18. There’s an obvious crack through the body, the entire side dented.
I stare at it in shock. “Wyatt…” I shake my head, literally speechless. “Wyatt did you break my guitar?”
Wyatt crosses his arms. “So?”
A rush of anger goes through me. That guitar was special, a gift from my father on my eighteenth birthday. Sure, I have about a dozen guitars, many of them even better quality than the Martin, which I admittedly barely play anymore, but still. It’s mine, and for a long time it was the most expensive guitar I owned. Wyatt knows he isn’t allowed to touch any of my instruments without asking. And, even worse, I’m sure this wasn’t an accident.
“Why would you do that?” I ask, my voice low. For the first time since leaving the police station, I think the kid might look scared. “Why would you do that, Wyatt?”
He just stares at me, eyes hard. “Are you going to send me back to Huntington?” he finally asks in a flat voice. But there’s something else there, too. A fear that makes me feel like something dark and cold is burrowing in my chest.
“What? Send you—”
“Just do it,” he snarls. “I know you want to. You both do.”
“Wyatt.” I drop to my knees, grabbing the kid by the shoulder. “What are you talking about?”
Suddenly Wyatt is crying, rubbing his hands over and over across his eyes like he’s trying to stop it, like he doesn’t want me to see the tears. “I’m not even yours,” he sobs. “And now you’re going to have your own kid and…” He’s crying too hard to speak now and I stare at him, horrified. Is this what this behavior has all been about?
“Wyatt,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “This baby is not going to replace you. It doesn’t work like that.”
“But you’ll be…you’ll be its dad.”
I feel sick to my stomach. What would Sam say? I wonder desperately, my mind completely blank. But Wyatt is still crying, his little shoulders shaking, and I decide I don’t need to know the perfect thing to say. I pull Wyatt against me, holding him close. “Kid, we love you so much,” I say, not even trying to keep my voice even. “Your mom and I love you, Wyatt. More than you could know. We’re not going to love you any less when the baby comes. I promise.”
“But what if you do?” His voice is tiny, pitiful, and my eyes burn.
“Hey.” I pull back a little so I can look into his eyes, stomach twisting at the tears I see there. “When I met your mom, did it feel like she didn’t love you as much?”
Wyatt looks confused. “No…?”
“So even though your mom started loving me, she didn’t love you any less. Right?”
“I…I guess so.”
“And when you moved here to California with me and your mom, did you feel like you didn’t love your grandparents anymore?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s the cool thing about love, Wyatt. Our hearts just get bigger to make room for more of it.” I grip his shoulders tighter. “I’m going to love this baby. So is your mom. So will you. But I will never stop loving you, not even one bit, not ever.”
“You love me?”
I’m pretty sure my heart is breaking. “Of course I do.”
“But…but you’re not my dad.”
My throat tightens. God, Sam, I think. I hope I’m doing this right. “Your dad was an awesome person. And I’m so sorry he can’t be here to see how cool you’re growing up to be. I could never replace him. I don’t want to try.” I stare into the kid’s eyes. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” I take a deep breath. “I hope I’ll be your step-dad really soon. But it doesn’t matter what you call me, Wyatt. I love you. I want you here with your mom and me. Nothing changes that. Nothing.”
Wyatt throws his arms around my neck, crying again, his whole body shaking. “I’m so sorry I broke your guitar.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I say. “But I’m much more worried about you than some stupid guitar. You and your mom are the two most important people in the world to me, kid.”
“Really?”
/>
I laugh a little, feeling tears in my eyes too. “Of course you are.” And it’s true. I’d fallen for this kid, maybe before I’d even really fallen for Sam. I know I can never measure up to Doug Warner, Sam’s first love, a hero to his country. But damn it, Wyatt makes me want to. He makes me want to be better. “You’re my family, buddy.”
“I’m really sorry. I just got so scared…”
“It’s normal to get scared. You just have to talk to your mom or me. We’ll always help you figure stuff out when you’re scared. Or mad or sad or whatever. Okay?”
“Okay.” Wyatt takes a deep breath and his next words are quiet in my ear. “I love you,” Wyatt whispers, and something shifts in my chest.
All this time I’ve been so worried that I won’t be able to be a father to the new baby. How unbelievably stupid I’d been. Sure, I’m probably going to make a lot of mistakes. I’ll make mistakes with Wyatt, too. And with Sam. That’s just life. But I know as I hug Wyatt there in the spare room, the broken guitar at our feet, that I would do anything for this kid. Just like I’d do anything for the new baby. Anything for Sam. And in the end, I’m pretty sure that’s all that matters.
It’s like my dad had told me that morning so many weeks ago, that you only need three things to be a parent—loyalty, love, and patience. No matter what mistakes I might make, I’m never going to run out of loyalty or love for this family. Patience might be a little harder, especially if Wyatt keeps pulling crap like this. But I can work on it. Considering everything I put my own dad through, I probably deserve to have my patience tested.
And Wyatt is definitely worth a little testing.
“Boys?” Sam’s voice calls up to us. “You home?”
Wyatt turns his wide eyes on me, once again looking scared. “You gonna tell her?”
“I have to, kid. But it’s going to be okay.”
Wyatt straightens his shoulders. “It would be fine with me if you want to go talk to her first. I can wait here.”
I bark out a laugh. “Sending me to the wolves by myself, huh?” He gives me a sheepish smile and I tousle his hair. “Actually, that’s a pretty good idea. Why don’t you go to your room for a bit? We’ll call you down after we talk.”
The Ransome Brothers_A Ransom Novel Page 32