Take It Down A Notch

by Weston Parker

  Thankfully, my phone rang about twenty minutes after I’d gotten there. I excused myself from the table, an uneasy feeling running through me when I saw it was Tessa calling. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m not going to be able to make it to pick Lawson up.” She sounded frantic. “My laptop just died, and it won’t come back on. I’ve called the IT people, but my deadline is, like, now. There’s no way I can redo my entire article in that time.”

  “Shit.” I looked down at my watch and jolted when I saw the time. “I hope they can get your article back for you. Don’t worry about Lawson. I’ll go get him.”

  Lucky for me, it gave me a perfectly reasonable excuse to run out on Mr. Agent Extraordinaire and his smitten but nice girlfriend. I went back to the table to grab my purse and say goodbye, but I really had to get going.

  Lawson was going to be worried sick. I was never late to pick him up, but I was already running late, and I wasn’t even on my way yet.

  “I’m so sorry. Something urgent has come up, and I have to leave.”

  “What could possibly be urgent to a photographer who’s already done her shoot for the day?” Agent Extraordinaire scoffed. “Or more important than having dinner with me? It’s rude to accept an invitation only to run off before the appetizers are even delivered.”

  I bit back a retort, not giving a shit whether or not he wanted me to leave or what he thought. “Yes, and I’ve apologized. Please excuse me.”

  I had to get to Lawson. I didn’t have time for this egomaniac’s lectures.

  Chapter 9

  Declan

  “It’s getting late,” I said to Lawson, sitting beside him on the same bench I’d found him on this morning. “Are you sure your mom is on her way?”

  Dropping the kid off myself would probably have been faster than waiting for his mother, but he’d only known me a few hours. I doubted he’d get in a car with me, and rightfully so.

  Plus, I had no idea where he lived, and it was peak traffic time. I fucking hated traffic.

  “She’ll be here,” he said confidently. Craning his neck to look down the road again, I heard a little sigh escaping his lips when he still didn’t see the car he was looking for. One of his knees bounced, and his expression was tight.

  Out of nowhere, it hit me that this kid was worried about his mother. I couldn’t say I related to ever having felt worried about my parents, but I didn’t want him to start bawling again. Twice in one day would be way too much for me, even if this kid hadn’t actually turned out to be so bad.

  In fact, more than a few times today, I’d found myself smiling at him or chuckling at something he’d said. Little dude really wasn’t what I’d been expecting him to be, nor was spending the day with him in the program.

  “Okay, I believe you,” I said, offering him a softer smile than I’d felt on my face in the longest fucking time. “In the meantime, why don’t we get to know each other a little more?”

  Lawson was shy, but he was slowly starting to come around. “Okay, we can do that.”

  Since I’d learned he wasn’t the type to take the lead in a situation, I knew it was up to me to ask him questions to draw him out of his shell. “What’s your favorite color?”

  It was stupid, but hey, at least it was a question. I really didn’t know the first thing about kids or trying to get them to open up. I was flying by the seat of my pants here.

  “Green,” he answered without hesitation. “But not green like the grass. Green like an olive. Olive green.”

  “Olive green, huh?” I smiled. “I like that. There’s a lot more to colors than just ‘green.’ Most people would have just said ‘green’ and left it at that.”

  Lawson’s lips spread into a shy smile. “I know. It makes me feel like a freak of nature sometimes. Kids make fun of me.”

  Surprising myself more than anyone else, I reached up and gently squeezed his shoulder. “You’re not a freak of nature. You’re ahead of the rest of your class. They always make fun of people like that because they’re still too stupid to understand that it’s because you’re so much smarter than them that you’re different.”

  I had some experience with that particular feeling. What had saved me from being bullied was that I also knew how to fight back, courtesy of Charles and my father. Not for the first time, I wondered what I would have done without my dad.

  I wasn’t his biggest fan at the moment, and he sure as shit wasn’t mine, but he’d taught me a lot. It made my heart feel something for this little guy, and my heart wasn’t exactly the feeling type.

  “Mom says we shouldn’t call people stupid,” Lawson said, looking at me like he’d caught me with my hand in the cookie jar.

  I shrugged. “If it’s true, it’s true. You don’t have to say it to their faces if you don’t want to, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true.”

  “Do you always speak the truth?”

  I had to think about it for a second. “I try to.”

  Most of the time, I said whatever was on my mind, but it was more because I didn’t give a fuck. But occasionally, even my severely faulty filter didn’t allow me to voice certain things.

  “So do I,” he agreed.

  I clasped my hands together and put my elbows on my knees, leaning forward as I turned my head to face Lawson. “What do you like to do for fun?”

  A brightness lit his eyes from the inside out. “I like to read a lot.”

  “Yeah?” I cocked a brow at him, offering him my fist to bump. When he just looked at it, I shook my head. “Make a fist with your hand and then put it against mine.”

  “Why?” He frowned, looking at my hand uncertainly again.

  “It’s a fist bump. Haven’t you done it before?”

  He shook his head but did as I asked. A tiny grin spread his lips when I reached out to ruffle his hair. “Did I do it right?”

  “You did great.” Of course, it was difficult not to do it well, but I didn’t mention it. “Would you like to know why we just did that?”

  In the short time I’d known him, I’d learned that he was curious about everything. It reminded me of myself at that age, strangely enough.

  “Yes.”

  “A fist bump is a lot like a high five. You know what that is, don’t you?” I waited for him to nod. “Well, a fist bump can mean something similar to a high five. It can also be a symbol of giving respect or approval, as well as a sign of companionship between two people.”

  “Why did you want to give me one just now?” he asked.

  “I wanted to show you my respect and approval because I like to read a lot too.”

  “You do?” He perked up. “What do you like to read?”

  “Pretty much anything I can get my hands on,” I found myself admitting, though it wasn’t something a whole lot of people knew about me. “You?”

  “Same.” He picked up his tattered backpack and opened it, pulling out a copy of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. “Have you read this one?”

  “Sure. I remember something about the moldy touch but not much else.”

  “Cheese touch,” he corrected me, the words coming out in a rush. Clapping his hands over his mouth suddenly, he looked up at me with wide eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have corrected you. Tessa says people get annoyed when you correct them and that there are better ways to do it.”

  I frowned. “Who’s Tessa?”

  “Mom’s friend.” He caught sight of something in the distance, the widest, most relieved smile spreading on his face. “There she is.”

  “Who, your mom or Tessa?” I asked, but I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me.

  He jumped to his feet and waved like crazy, running to the edge of the curb. It was only once he reached it that he turned back toward me. “It’s my mom. Come meet her. She’s awesome.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. Kid sure did love his mother. His energy and excitement were fucking contagious. But I supposed meeting this supposedly awesome mother of his was something that would
have to be done at some point anyway.

  Lawson and I were stuck together for three months. I was sure she was going to want to know who her son was spending all that time with.

  Plus, I actually really liked her kid. He was a cool dude, even if she hadn’t taught him how to fist bump. It dawned on me then that perhaps there was a reason she hadn’t taught him, but it was too late to take it back now.

  The realization made me decide for certain to meet the mother. There would probably be times we’d need to communicate, if only so I didn’t do anything that fucked with her ideas of raising him.

  I was in the process of getting up from the bench when the beat-up old car pulled to a stop, but I was knocked back on my ass when Lawson’s mother climbed out of it. I didn’t know what I expected her to look like, but it sure as hell wasn’t what she looked like.

  The woman was fucking beautiful, and that wasn’t a word I used to describe women very often. There were too many pretty girls in the world. Calling them all beautiful, even if they were, would lessen the meaning of the word.

  Lawson’s mom, however, I would make an exception for. She was young too. Like really young. Younger than I was probably. Logically, I knew there were lots of people my age who had kids, but in my mind, a mom was someone who was old. Or older than me, at least.

  Jet-black hair framed a heart-shaped face, feathered in the front to make her delicate features somehow look soft. Her skin was smooth and pale, but the apples of her cheeks were flushed and rosy.

  Perfectly white teeth sank into plump, red lips that immediately made my dick take notice of them. When she looked up at me after hugging Lawson, our eyes met and held for the smallest fraction of a second.

  It was enough for me to see that her eyes were the same brilliant hazel as Lawson’s, but somehow even more intriguing. Almost like someone had captured the essence of all the blue-green hues in the ocean and mixed some golden flecks into it.

  Since when do I have thoughts like that?

  For the first time in my life, I was at a loss for words. But she was walking my way, and I still hadn’t even made it off the bench.

  Something akin to interest sparked in her eyes when she came to stop in front of me, but it wasn’t the sexual kind of interest I was used to seeing in women our age. This was almost professional.

  “Hi, I’m Raeanne. Thank you for waiting with Lawson. A friend was supposed to come and pick him up, but her laptop broke, and I was all the way across town.” It sounded almost like she was rambling, but her words were too sure for that, too controlled. It was an interesting mixture.

  “Declan.” I intentionally omitted my last name. It was a notorious one to have around here, and my reputation preceded me. She hadn’t given me hers either, so I didn’t think it was too weird. “It’s really nice to meet you. You have a wonderful son. Waiting with him was a pleasure.”

  What the fuck was that? Being respectful was not something I did very often, but it had come naturally with her.

  Her eyes softened on a smile that was way too gorgeous to be on a mother. I was still struggling to wrap my head around it. “Thanks, I think he’s pretty great too.”

  Lawson stood at the car and waved at me before climbing in. “Thanks for everything. It was good spending time with you. See you next time, Declan.”

  Raeanne seemed surprised about something, her eyebrows rising before she schooled her expression. Swinging her gaze back to mine, I saw that those intriguing eyes of hers were suddenly darker than they had been before.

  “So Declan,” she said, looking up at me from nearly a foot below my height but somehow making it feel like she was looking down at me. “You’ve been assigned as his Big Brother?”

  I nodded. “As of this morning.”

  “Have you been doing this for a long time?” Her eyes narrowed on mine, making her look very much like she was suspicious about something.

  A smile tugged at my lips. Not a smirk, an honest-to-god smile. “Same answer, as of this morning. Lawson told me this was his first day too.”

  She glanced at the car, making sure that he was still inside before her shoulders slumped. It was a small movement, not something I would have noticed if I wasn’t so intensely focused on her. “I’ve never done anything like this for him before. I don’t know what to think about it. I just…”

  It looked like it was her turn to be at a loss for words. Little bits and pieces of things Lawson had told me over the course of the day and things I’d learned about him all clicked into place suddenly.

  That was why she was nervous, why she was looking at me the way that she was. She was worried about having enrolled her son in this program. Presumably, she’d done it for some kind of male influence in his life, and a role model I was not, but I was a man.

  I didn’t know what kind of insanely idiotic one had had a woman like this and given her up, but I didn’t know much about relationships, so I couldn’t really judge too much. If I was the relationship kind of guy though, I’d have clung to this woman as hard as I fucking could.

  She was gorgeous, and from the little interaction I’d just had with her, I could tell there was a lot more to her than looks. It made me want to set her mind at ease. Some weirdly primal instinct that roared inside me wanted to make the weight she carried on her shoulders lighter if I could.

  “I get it,” I said, my voice somehow coming out as gentle. Tender, even. “Why don’t we all go out for dinner tomorrow night? If you would like to get to know me before letting me spend time with your son, I understand.”

  Searching my eyes for a beat, she finally nodded. “Yeah, I think that maybe you do. That’s a good idea. It would be really nice to get to know you a little better, so we’re in. Give us a place and time, and we’ll be there.”

  “I think you’d better pick the place.” I doubted the restaurants I frequented even allowed children. “Lawson has my number. Let’s meet at seven. Just text me, and I’ll be there.”

  Chapter 10

  Raeanne

  “Also, he’s really smart, Mom,” Lawson added to the long list of compliments he’d already given this Declan guy in the last twenty-four hours.

  We were getting ready for dinner with his Big Brother, and Lawson could not shut up about the man. He had been speaking about Declan almost nonstop since I’d picked him up yesterday. They had spent more hours apart now than they had together, and yet there were still new things coming up about him.

  “That’s great, honey,” I said. I’d lost count of how many times I’d said that to him today. “I’m glad you enjoyed spending time with him.”

  It made me feel like a bit of a nutcase to have been so worried about it, while at the same time I felt more than a little guilty about not having thought about signing him up earlier. I’d never heard him talk about anyone like this.

  Lawson was so excited about Declan that he literally seemed unable to stop talking about him. It made me excited to get to know him better, to find out what it was about him that had inspired such enthusiasm in my son.

  Declan was already waiting for us when we arrived at the restaurant I’d chosen for dinner. It was a simple, laidback kind of place with a play area for kids and hearty, reasonably priced food.

  Standing in front of the saloon-style door that led inside, Declan was dressed in dark jeans and a black shirt that was rolled up to expose his muscular forearms. Personally, I’d always thought that guys’ hotness levels increased by five thousand whenever their sleeves were rolled up.

  On Declan though, I decided it had to be at least ten thousand. Not that he needed it.

  God, if anything, I needed him to do something to make him less attractive and not more so. As it was, he was the most good-looking guy I’d come across in a long time.

  As we approached him on the sidewalk, I stole a quick second to notice how handsome he was again. When that second glance was done, I promised myself that I would stop thinking about Lawson’s Big Brother in those terms.

 
; Light brown hair, that was perfectly styled in a way that made it look like he’d just woken up with it that way, glowed almost like a halo in the backlight provided by the lights inside the restaurant. He cut a tall strong figure in front of the window, his body lean but muscled.

  His shirt stretched and bulged across his broad shoulders, his rounded biceps, and flat abdomen. Although I’d never seen him without his shirt and probably never would, it didn’t take much to imagine what he would look like underneath the fabric.

  Not that I would imagine it, of course. I would never imagine how there had to be one of those delicious Vs between his hips with a body like that. I would never fantasize about what it might feel like to be in those arms or what his gorgeous green eyes might look like hooded in lust or even soft in love.

  He was Lawson’s Big Brother, so I would never think of him like that. Even though those eyes might have popped into my mind more than a few times while Lawson had been talking about him today.

  They really were gorgeous, a rich green that was the color of moss in the deepest part of a forest. They sparkled too, almost like moss might if it was damp with early morning dew and sunlight trickled through the trees to catch on a droplet.

  The kind of eyes that would draw a girl in and make her fall in love with a single smile on his stupidly kissable lips, which was another reason to stay away from him. I wasn’t looking to fall in love with a guy like him. I wasn’t looking to fall in love at all actually. But especially not with a guy like him.

  He moved too gracefully, too effortlessly. Like he was so confident in his own skin that his brain didn’t even need to command his limbs. They simply moved at will. In a word, he was too smooth.

  Cool cockiness seeped from his very pores, which was at odds with the kind of man I thought would have signed up for the program. There was something about him that just made it seem like he was the kind of guy who was more comfortable thrusting a probably huge cock—because of course it would be on a man like that—into some lucky supermodel than spending his days mentoring children.