“Now will you listen to me?”
I nodded, too stunned to speak.
“Good.” Seth gestured to the stool I’d just vacated. “Now sit the fuck down.”
He sat on the one beside me, and leaned close, staring hard into my eyes. “I don’t give a shit about what people perceive a grown-up life looks like. I don’t give a shit that we’re supposed to get married and push out a couple of kids. You know what I do give a shit about? You. You, Cass. That’s it. Do I want kids with anyone? No. Do I want kids with you? Yes, I do. Do I want you, if you don’t want kids? Yes, I fucking do. Because I want you, Cass. Just you. Fuck the rest.”
Raw emotion welled up inside me. This man… This man was actual perfection. I scooted forward and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, burrowing my face into his neck. “You and words.”
Seth banded his arms around me. “They are my specialty.”
I pulled back and wiped the tears from my cheeks. “I haven’t decided. I haven’t really let myself think all that much about it.”
He nodded. “I get it. I do. Just promise me one thing?”
“Anything.”
“Don’t feel like you have to figure it out on your own. We’re in this together. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said quietly.
Seth pressed a soft kiss to my mouth. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Do you want company in the shower?”
A giggle rose in my throat. “Always.”
* * * *
Every single part of my body ached. I was a nurse—I was used to being on my feet for twelve-hour shifts and then some. But I was pretty sure I had never been this exhausted.
I collapsed in a pool chair beside Seth, almost faint with exertion. “Do they feed that kid crack before sending him here?”
Seth laughed and handed me a bottle of water from the cooler between us. “You know, I’m beginning to think that they do.”
“Big assholes.”
“The biggest. Big hairy assholes.”
“Big hairy assholes!” Austin bellowed from across the yard. He was dressed in a complete Batman costume, the cape billowing behind him as he streaked across the grass catching invisible bad guys…which he had been doing for the last two hours.
Seth, aka the Penguin, had been caught and sent to jail within ten minutes. But me? The Joker? Yeah… I was hard to catch. Apparently.
“Oh no! Breakout at Arkham Asylum! The Joker is freeeeeeee!” Austin screeched. He pulled out an invisible bat-phone. “Commissioner Gordon! It’s me, Batman! The Joker is on the run. I repeat, the Joker is on the run. But he can’t escape me. I’m Batman!”
“Jesus Christ, I hope that’s true. You think he’ll catch me quick?”
“That or you’ll die from heat exhaustion.” Seth slipped his sunglasses down over his eyes and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. “Have fun, gorgeous.”
“You suck.”
The sound of the doorbell ringing filtered through the open sliding door in the kitchen.
“I’ll get it,” Seth said, making to get up.
“Don’t you dare.” I laughed. “I’ll go. I need to feel the air conditioning or I’m going to pass out.”
Seth saluted me. “Hey, Batman!”
Austin turned to face us with a scowl. “You’re in solitary confinement, Penguin. I know you had something to do with the Joker escaping.”
“Where does he get this shit?” Seth asked me, his eyebrows shooting up into his hairline.
“Hell if I know. But I think we should give Hollywood a call—he’s got some awesome ideas.” I rose to my feet and gave Austin a wave. “I’ll be right back, Batman.”
“You can’t run from me forever, Joker!”
“No, but I can sure as hell try,” I mumbled to Seth.
Inside the house, the air conditioning was utterly blissful on my overheated skin. I had no idea where Austin got all his energy from, or how he wasn’t passed out from heatstroke. How on earth do Blake and Marley keep up with this kid? No wonder they never turned us down when we offered to babysit. I’d need a live-in nanny and a pharmacist on speed dial if he was my kid.
I pulled open the front door, but there was no one on the other side. It had taken me a few moments to get there—maybe they’d thought no one was home. I stepped outside and scanned the street. The only person around was a kid at the end of the front path, picking up a BMX bike from where it lay on the sidewalk.
“Hey, kid,” I called. “Was someone just here?”
He looked up, startled. “Uh…” He glanced up and down the street.
I took a few steps closer to him. “Was it you? Are you okay?”
The kid looked to be around twelve years old, with messy sandy-blond hair. There was something a little familiar about him. He had to live around the neighborhood.
“Kid?” I prompted when he didn’t answer me.
He let his bike fall back down and shoved his hands into his pockets, eyeballing me with a mix of steely determination and a hint of uncertainty. “You’re Cassidy.”
It wasn’t a question.
I folded my arms across my chest. “Yeah.” Those eyes… I knew those eyes. Then it was like someone peeling away the years, and I saw a smiling, sweaty boy standing with his soccer team after a match. On the first day of school, that same determination etched on his younger features. His first steps. Covered in mashed potatoes as he tried to feed himself with his chubby fists.
I felt myself nodding. I was Cassidy. That much I knew for certain. Then I heard myself ask, “Do you want to come in?”
He picked his bike up and wheeled it to the house as he followed me. I helped him lift it inside and propped it against the wall in the hallway.
“Soda?”
He nodded.
I gestured for him to follow me into the kitchen. Waving my hand at the couches in the living area, I said, “You can, um, sit. If you want. Or stand. Standing is good.”
He sat.
Then every decision seemed important. We had plastic cups for Austin, but he didn’t need one…right? He would think it was for babies and be totally insulted and leave right then and there and then I’d—
Glass. Not plastic.
Grape juice, or lemonade?
Coke?
Coke. Kids liked Coke. Austin wasn’t allowed Coke. I’d pretty much had to sign a blood oath that I wouldn’t give him any.
But he would like Coke.
Ice?
It was already cold from being in the fridge.
Straw?
I had crazy straws…but were they stupid?
A few minutes later, I handed him a huge glass of Coke, the ice cubes chinking against the side of the glass and the loopy, bendy, crazy straw being pushed out by the carbonated bubbles.
“Um, thanks,” he said, accepting the glass.
I opened my mouth—to say what, I had no idea. “I’ll be right back. I need to use the bathroom.” I cringed. Surely anything—anything—would have been better than that.
Before I could say anything else to mortify me further, I turned and left the room. In the bathroom, I splashed cold water on my face and tried to keep my hands from shaking. I had to get it together. I couldn’t fall apart. I had to be strong. I had to be. I had to be.
With a deep breath, I left the bathroom and made my way back into the kitchen.
The sound of the sliding door made me turn, and in barreled Austin, followed by Seth.
“Who was at the door?” Seth asked, kissing my cheek on his way past to the refrigerator.
Austin crashed into my legs, making me stumble a step or two. “Caught you, Joker!”
Neither of them had noticed the other person in the room. I glanced at the boy, at his eyes flitting from Austin to me. “This is my nephew. Austin.”
Austin released me and turned to see who I was talking to.
Seth glanced over his shoulder and straightened when he noticed him. “Hey, guy.�
� Seth looked at me, his eyebrow quirked in question.
But I couldn’t find the words, even though only one had echoed in my head since I’d laid eyes on him.
“This is Billy,” I said eventually. A knot formed in my throat.
Seth looked at him again, this time his eyes staying on him for a few beats. And when he looked back at me, I knew that he knew. He had figured it out.
Billy.
My son.
Chapter Four
Austin didn’t seem to think another child showing up at our house was anything out of the ordinary, even though he had been the only one. Ever. Austin sat down beside Billy and started showing him all the gadgets attached to his costume.
Seth and I grabbed the opportunity to slip outside. Seth eased the sliding door closed behind us as we stepped out into the back yard.
“Did you know he was coming?” he asked.
I wrapped my arms around myself and shook my head. “I had no idea. I didn’t even know he wanted to meet me.” I hadn’t heard from Billy’s parents in almost a year, when they’d had sent me a letter telling me how he was. There had been no mention of him knowing he was adopted, let alone wanting to meet me.
“I looked at him and I just knew, Seth. I knew he was my—”
He took a step closer to me. “You can say it,” he said softly. “Saying it out loud doesn’t make it any truer than it already is.”
“He’s my son,” I whispered. “He’s my son.”
“So now that he’s here, what are you going to do?”
If only I knew.
We went back inside, where Austin was showing off his stellar Batman moves. The glass of Coke sat untouched in front of Billy, beads of condensation rolling down the side of the glass to pool on the coffee table.
“Do you…?” I trailed off. Moving to stand in front of him, I offered a tentative smile. “Do you want to take a walk with me?”
At first, he didn’t do anything, then he gave a sharp nod and rose to his feet.
Seth flashed me a wink on our way out of the room. He would take Austin back home after we’d gone. Blake and Marley would understand.
For the first few minutes, Billy and I were both silent. My head swirled with questions and I was sure his did too.
“So, that kid,” Billy said, breaking the silence. “He’s your nephew?”
“Yep.”
“He’s sort of crazy.”
Isn’t that the truth. “You have no idea.”
“You don’t have any kids?”
“Oh, um…no. No kids.”
He looked up at me. “You don’t want them?”
“That is a very difficult question to answer.”
“Because of me?”
Blunt. To the point. Every bit what I would have said. “Because of a lot of things. But yeah, you’re part of it.”
We fell into silence again. Part of me screamed to say something, to ask him everything I’d always wondered. That this was precious time, and I shouldn’t waste it. How many hours had I spent planning the perfect thing I would say to him the first time I met him?
Because as troubled as my head had been all these long years, I’d known our meeting was inevitable. I’d felt it somehow. That there was a piece of me, somewhere in the world, and there always would be.
“Do you like ice cream?” I asked eventually.
His response was to look at me as though I’d just asked if he liked oxygen with his air.
Stupid, Cassidy. What kind of kid doesn’t like ice cream?
We walked all the way to Cherry Pie’s.
With Hamilton’s being practically right next door, every time I visited Seth I had to force myself not to indulge in a delicious dessert. My ass would have quadrupled in size by now if I didn’t.
Inside the ice cream parlor, we were met with a cool breeze and a riot of colors. Cherry Pie had every flavor of ice cream known to mankind and every topping they could think of. A person could eat there every day for a year and never have the same combination twice.
Billy’s eyes widened as he took in the place and I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face.
“Pretty sweet, huh?”
“I’ll say.”
I stood back and let Billy make his choice. He was a literal kid in a candy store. He went for a scoop each of peanut butter crunch and triple chocolate chip with a crushed Oreo topping.
It would make most people’s teeth hurt just by looking at it. To me, it looked like heaven.
I chose caramel swirl and white chocolate with gummy bears as the topping. We found a table near the window to sit and eat our desserts.
“Good, right?” I asked.
Billy nodded. “Freaking amazing.”
A laugh caught in my throat.
Something warm bloomed in my chest. I was sitting across from my child, eating ice cream. How had my day veered so far away from where it had started?
“This place is pretty cool. You come here a lot?” Billy asked when he’d finished.
“Not as much as I’d like,” I mumbled. “But Seth—um, the guy at my house? He owns a business nearby. So we come sometimes.”
“Is he your husband?”
Blunt. Blunt. Blunt. “No, he’s not.”
“Do you want him to be?”
Oh, holy hell. “One day. If he wants to be.”
Billy nodded like he understood. Maybe he did. He seemed mature for his age.
“So, um, I’m a little surprised your parents didn’t call me.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Your parents.” I repeated. “I didn’t think they’d be cool with you just showing up. I figured this would be a conversation we’d all have first, then we’d maybe all hang out together for a while before you and I spent some time… I’m sorry. I’m rambling.”
Billy shook his head. “You’ve thought about this a lot?”
Be blunt. “Yes,” I said simply.
He nodded again, like he was processing this information.
“Are they…are they picking you up? I mean, how much time do we have?”
Billy dropped his eyes and fidgeted with his napkin.
“Billy…your parents know you’re here, right?”
He sighed and lifted his gaze to meet mine. “They sort of don’t know that I know about you.”
“What?”
“They don’t know that I know that I’m adopted.”
And just like that, I had the second biggest bombshell of my life dropped on me.
“Where do they think you are right now?” I asked.
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “My friend Alex’s house.”
“And you don’t think they would be worried if they called Alex’s mom and you’re not there?” An awful realization hit me like a ton of bricks. “Wait a minute—did your family move, because the last time I heard from your parents you guys still lived in…” I trailed off at the guilty as sin look on Billy’s face. “Henderson. You live in Henderson and you, what, rode your bike to Las Vegas? Are you kidding me right now? It’s like…a bunch of miles! Oh my God, you could have been killed! You could have been abducted! You could have been flattened by a Mack truck!”
Billy huffed. “Jeez, you sound just like my—”
We both froze.
I released a breath. “Billy,” I said in a less shrill voice. “That was really stupid. Riding your bike from Henderson to Las Vegas, at twelve years old, is really irresponsible.”
He planted his elbow on the table and rested his cheek on his fist. His cheeks pinked and he avoided my eyes. “I just wanted to see you,” he mumbled.
Something cracked in my chest at the frankness of his words. “I get it. I do. But what you did was dangerous. You know I have to take you back now, right?”
Billy snapped his head up, a wild, desperate look on his face. “What? Right now? No—that’s not—no.”
I ran my fingers through my hair. “We at least have to go call your parents. Okay? Let’s g
o back to my place and call them. I have to tell them where you are.”
After a moment, Billy nodded, though he looked resigned.
We walked back to the house, and it took twice as long as it had on the way to Cherry Pie’s. I suspected Billy had dragged it out, as though I was leading him to the electric chair.
The house was empty when we arrived. Seth would probably hang out at his brother’s place until he heard from me, giving me the time with Billy that we needed.
“Do you want me to talk to them, or you?” I asked, picking up the cordless phone.
Billy shrugged and dropped into the arm chair in front of the TV.
I handed him the phone. “Can you put the number in, please?”
He did it wordlessly.
“I’m going to take it in the kitchen, okay?”
He didn’t answer me.
I hit call as I headed into the kitchen, my heart hammering against my chest. Oh, God, what if they were pissed? What if they thought I had orchestrated it? That I’d been in secret communication with their kid and had somehow lured him away—
“Hello?” a woman answered.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I should have spent the moments practicing what to say, not panicking over something that hadn’t happened yet.
“Hello?” she said again.
“Hi.” I cleared my throat. “Hi, Mrs. Rossi?”
“Yes.”
“Hi, this is… It’s Cassidy. Cassidy Reynolds.”
There was a long, heavy pause on the other end of the phone. “Oh, Cassidy. Hello. Um, how are you?”
“I’m… Well, I’m not sure. I’m so sorry to call you out of the blue like this but—”
“It’s okay,” Mrs. Rossi said, interrupting me. “To be honest, I’ve expected this phone call every single day for twelve years. And I’m in total agreement. I think Billy is old enough. I think he can handle the truth. And I know he will want to meet you.”
“That’s the thing. Billy… He’s sort of here. At my house. Right now.”
The line was quiet. “I’m sorry, what?”
“He found out. I don’t know how, I haven’t asked. He rang my doorbell little over an hour ago.”
“But how did he…?” Her voice trailed off. “Wait—how on earth did he get there?”
Secrets, Lies & Fireworks (Beautiful Saviors Book 1) Page 3