“My mother had a heart attack. She’s been taken to the hospital in Lynchburg. I need to go as soon as I figure out who can take care of Luca.” Anita didn’t answer so she canceled the call and started to dial Evan.
“I can watch Luca,” Sam offered immediately.
“No. You don’t want to do that.” Evan didn’t pick up either. No doubt he was worried that she was going to ask him for money. Freakin’ coward.
Sam took her phone so she would look at him as he spoke.
“He’s sleeping. And when he wakes up we’ll play or watch a movie. I can make him a sandwich or pasta-Os.”
“Are you sure?” She wasn’t worried that Sam wasn’t capable of taking care of Luca, but that it might make him feel trapped.
“Yeah. How hard can it be?” He shrugged as if it was no big deal. She didn’t have a lot of choices.
“Don’t let him out of your sight for a minute. He’s devious.”
“Already know that,” Sam said with a grin.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. Go be with your mom.”
“Okay.” She called her sister back. “Roz, come pick me up. Sam is going to watch Luca.”
“Aww.”
“Don’t start.” Riley hung up on her match-making sister and went to find shoes.
* * *
They got to the hospital in record time, thanks to Roslyn’s Nascar-esque driving.
“I thought Ken said she was stable,” Riley noted as she unlatched her seat belt.
“He did, but what does he know?” Neither of them were too fond of their newest stepfather. Ken—or Number Four—as they sometimes called him could be rather cold.
After a few stops for directions they finally got to the correct room where their mother sat complaining to the nurses about how long before she could go have a cigarette.
“Where’s my grandchildren?” her mother asked, dismissing the nurse.
“Her new boyfriend is watching Luca and Cooper has Maddy,” Roslyn said. “How are you?”
Their mother started into the long dissertation about how close she’d been to death, and how awful they were treating her. Neither of which was completely true.
Her mother was going to be fine. She could only hope the same was the case for Sam and Luca.
* * *
Sam looked around Riley’s small living room. The top two shelves on the bookcase held actual books. Some college text books, some novels. The bottom three shelves were filled with movies. Most of which had colorful covers. Why did animals wear shirts, but no pants? Something was very wrong with that.
“Princesses?” He frowned at the movie and hid it at the back toward the wall. Surely Luca didn’t want to watch a princess movie.
Riley didn’t have cable so he picked up a magazine which had her sister’s name on the address label, and flipped through a few pages.
He was actually excited to see Luca when he wandered out of his bedroom with his blond hair sticking out in every direction. Finally, Sam would have a reason to play cars or watch the penguin movie.
“Momma,” he said, his voice rough with sleep.
“Momma went to see your grandma. She’ll be back soon. Are you hungry?” Luca shook his head. “Do you want some juice?” He nodded.
See? Not that difficult. He could handle this.
He poured apple juice into a spill-proof cup and topped it off with water. Riley didn’t like him having fully loaded juice because it was mostly sugar.
He felt like a professional as he shook it over the sink to make sure it was sealed as he’d seen Riley do.
“There you go. Do you want to watch TV?”
He didn’t say anything, he looked as though he could fall back to sleep at any second. His rabbit was tucked under one arm as he crawled up on the sofa and stared at the wall.
Sam took a while to wake up too. He’d let Luca move at his own pace.
It only took about ten minutes for the juice to kick in and Luca was up running around. He’d pulled out the Candy Land game that had no pieces and wanted to play.
“Okay. Here.” Sam went to the cupboard and got out the animal crackers. “I’ll be the elephant. What do you want to be?”
“Elephant!” Luca said.
“I already called the elephant. Do you want to be the lion?”
“Roar!”
“Right. Luca, the Lion and Sam the Elephant are going to take Candy Land by storm.” Luca laughed even though he couldn’t have understood the joke.
They managed to get three spaces before Luca ate both crackers and jumped up to go do something else.
About an hour later, Sam was exhausted and needed to use the restroom.
“Don’t do anything while I go take a piss. Stay right there and don’t move.” Sam knew that wasn’t going to work so he hurried back to the hall, undoing his jeans as he walked. He kicked the door halfway closed with his foot as he lifted the toilet seat. How did people do this? He didn’t have a moment to himself.
He tried to hurry, but hurrying never worked. Maybe he could hear Luca from the bathroom and yell for him to stop whatever it was he was undoubtedly doing.
Instead, Luca opened the door and stared at him as soon as Sam had a steady stream going.
“It’s not cool to look at another guy’s junk.”
“Taking a piss,” Luca repeated. Sam was pretty sure that was not the phrase Riley would have taught him.
“Yep. I’m a big boy, so I go in a potty. Not in a diaper like a baby.” He knew Riley was trying to get him interested in the potty. To be honest, Luca’s little toilet did look pretty interesting. Red, with race cars all over it. Sam might have tried it himself if it would have flushed.
Sam shook off and tucked himself back in his pants. Then he washed his hands while Luca took in the show.
“See? I’m washing my hands. No matter when you get around to being a big boy, make sure to wash your hands. A lot of guys don’t.”
“Piss,” Luca said as he started pulling down his shorts.
“Maybe you shouldn’t call it that. Maybe . . .” He couldn’t bring himself to say pee-pee. He was a fucking marine. He’d been shot. He would not say pee-pee.
“Piss,” Luca said again. Pointing down.
“You have to go now?” Luca nodded emphatically so Sam assisted in getting his shorts down, and the diaper somewhat out of the way. He wasn’t sure how he was going to put that back the way it had been.
Instead of sitting on the seat with the weird little deflector shield, Luca raised the seat like he’d seen Sam do.
“Make sure to aim. You don’t want it all over the wall. Your mother will have a fit.”
Sam helped by holding his shirt out of the way, and realized how surreal this moment was. He’d never been there for someone’s first piss before.
There was a little trickle and Luca giggled at the sound it made when it hit the plastic bowl.
“Good job. Aim for that blue car and let it rip. Step a little closer, your hose is kind of short.” He frowned. “I’m sure it will grow with the rest of you. Don’t worry about that now.” God, he’d hate to give the kid a complex.
Luca laughed some more as he finished.
“You done?” Sam asked. Luca nodded. “Okay, now shake it a little. Not enough that it comes back and hits you in the face, just enough to get the excess off the end.”
“God, I wish I had a video of this,” Riley said, causing Sam to jump. She was smiling by the door.
“Momma, I’m takin’ a piss! I’m a big boy!”
Riley cocked an eyebrow at the term.
“He’s a big boy,” Sam said, trying to distract her.
“You are a big boy. Since you went in the big boy potty it means you get a big boy present.”
Luca’s brown eyes were huge.
“What about me? I went in the big boy potty too.” Sam winked at her.
“You’ll get your prize later.” She winked back at him.
“How’s y
our mom?”
“She’s going to be fine.” Riley waved away his concern. “She had a mild cardiac event, whatever that is. She’s being released, and her husband is taking care of her, so she didn’t really need me after all. Except to have someone to complain to.”
“We need you,” Sam said.
“You do?” She smiled.
“Yeah. That cool little potty doesn’t flush.” He pointed down at her son’s urine.
“One of his big boy presents is a fire truck stool so he can reach the real potty.”
“I like fire trucks. Do you think I can—”
“No. It’s for kids.”
Riley was still laughing as she followed her excited son down the hallway in anticipation of his presents. She’d hidden them on top of the refrigerator, and since Sam was there she wouldn’t need her own stool to retrieve the stool for her son.
“You’re pretty handy to have around,” she joked as he handed her the packages.
“Does that mean you might be willing to keep me?” he asked, his tone serious.
“Is that something you would be interested in? I thought . . . ?”
He shrugged. “Things change. People change.”
Riley was well aware of how people could change. Her perfect husband had changed into the kind of guy who cheated on her and left. And then she had changed from the happy girl who saw the best in everything to a hardened shrew of a woman.
If Sam was changing into a relationship kind of guy now, what would he turn into next?
Now was not the time to ask. Not with Luca hanging on her pants.
“Momma! I’m a big boy.”
“Okay. Here you go, big boy.” She handed him the two wrapped packages and watched as her baby opened up his Disney character underwear and the fire truck stool.
Right there in the kitchen he proceeded to tug off his pants and the disheveled diaper so he could put on his briefs. Backward.
“Hey buddy, turn them around,” Sam instructed and bent down to help. When Luca ran off to go put his stool in the bathroom, Sam looked at her.
The serious expression was on his face again, and she worried he’d already changed his mind about sticking around.
“His junk will grow, right?” Sam winced as he whispered.
Riley burst out laughing and all of the tension in her body escaped.
“I’m ready to keep you around, Sam. And not just to get things I can’t reach.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer so he could kiss her.
“It’s the orgasms too,” she teased, making him chuckle against her lips.
She invited him to stay the night. He needed to leave for another trip the next morning, but his flight wasn’t until ten, so he told her he could run home and pack before he went to the airport.
With her big boy snug in his own bed, she was free to snuggle in with Sam. She imagined what it would be like if this was a normal thing. She liked having a man in her bed, and in her life. As long as it was the right man.
Sam had only been gone for ten minutes the next morning when there was a knock at her door.
Evan.
She opened the door and called for Luca who was running around in just his underwear. He’d complained when she made him wear a diaper to bed, and took it off as soon as he woke up. After using the potty. However crude Sam’s lesson had been, it seemed to be working.
Riley noticed Luca didn’t yell and run over to greet his father like he did when Sam arrived. She felt an evil twinge of satisfaction in this fact.
“What’s up?” she asked, opening the door wider so he could come in.
“Your boyfriend is gone.” He nodded toward the parking area in the alley. So it wasn’t a coincidence that he’d arrived right after Sam. He had apparently been waiting for Sam to leave.
“So?”
“I don’t like him. He seems rough.”
“Rough? Is that your way of saying he’s big enough to kick the crap out of you?” Luca had run back to the bathroom for his stool to show his dad.
“Look!” Luca said as he put it down and climbed up. “I’m a big boy.”
“You sure are.” Evan dismissed him quickly and turned back to Riley with a smirk. “Is he the kind of trash that goes around beating the crap out of people?”
“He isn’t. But I’m sure he would change his mind if I asked him.” She smiled sweetly at him. She didn’t know how it was possible for a person to love someone so much at one point in their life and then hate them with such fierce intensity at another point, but as she glared at Evan, she knew it was possible. “Sam is the kind of guy who put himself at risk to serve his country. You know, a standup guy. Have you ever heard of this kind of thing?”
Evan rolled his eyes and sat down at the table. She fought the urge to ask him if he wanted tea. She was a southern girl who was raised with manners, but he was an asshole. Even southern hospitality didn’t apply to him.
“I need to talk to you about something important,” he said.
With a sigh, she sat across from him, waiting for him to ask her to reduce the child support as he’d done twice before. That wasn’t going to happen.
“What is it?”
“I’m moving to Arizona,” he said.
She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel about this. Happy, was the first emotion. If he moved to Arizona she wouldn’t have to see him. She wouldn’t have to fight the urge to shove her knee into his crotch, and she wouldn’t have to deal with his smirky grins when he talked about the guy she was seeing.
But then her thoughts turned to her son.
For a second she felt guilty that she hadn’t thought of how this would affect Luca first.
She was overcome with the desire to get Evan as far away as possible. But would Luca miss his dad? Would he remember him at all? He was almost three. She couldn’t remember anything from when she was three.
Luca hadn’t even wanted to go with his dad the last time. Maybe Luca was over it. He probably wouldn’t mind if he didn’t see his father.
Then a trickle of panic started moving through her body. According to the custody agreement, Evan was entitled to visitation rights. If he chose to enforce them while living in Arizona, it could mean sending her child across the country for longer lengths of time than a single weekend.
“What does this mean for Luca and me?” She got right down to it.
“Well, obviously it’s going to take a little while for me and Celia to get set up out there. She has a job waiting for her, but we’re going to be a little tight until I get a job too. So I was hoping you could be patient with the support payments.”
“I still need to keep a roof over Luca’s head, even if you decide you want to go on an adventure.”
“Does it need to be this nice of a roof?” he asked while looking around her apartment. Her place wasn’t glamorous in any way. It was small and old, but clean and maintained. Plus it was in a nice neighborhood with a small fenced-in yard, which had been the deciding factor.
Her hands balled into fists, and she moved them to her lap so he wouldn’t see how close she was to launching herself across the table to attack him.
“You were the one who decided you didn’t want your family. You can’t just brush him aside because you have something new and shiny. Do you want him growing up in some shack with no yard?”
“No. But does he honestly need his own room? At my place he sleeps on the sofa or with his sister.” Riley pressed her lips together.
“Yes. He needs his own room,” she said, impressed by how calmly she answered despite the anger she felt.
“Well, if you’re having so much trouble making ends meet, I could just take him to Arizona for a while.” Evan looked directly in her eyes as he said this, and as she looked back she saw the threat lurking there.
“Are you implying that if I don’t back off on the support you’re going to push for full custody?” He wouldn’t get it. At least she didn’t think so.
/> “I have a wife and another child. We’re going to be buying a house with the help of Celia’s parents. You are dating questionable men. Things might shake out differently than they did the first time.”
“Get out.”
“Sure. I need to get going anyway.” He stood and she noticed how skinny he looked in comparison to the way Sam filled the room.
“I’m a big boy,” Luca told his father again.
“I know, Luca. You said that already.” Evan seemed annoyed.
“He used the big boy potty for the first time yesterday,” Riley informed him.
“Taking a piss,” Luca supplied.
“That’s great, champ!” Evan bent down to pat him on the back and looked up at Riley. “See? You won’t have to spend money on diapers anymore.”
If her eyes could have shot lasers, Evan Fisher would have been obliterated.
The second he was out the door, she put on a movie to keep Luca occupied and called Cooper.
“How’s your mother?” he asked as a greeting. “Roz took Maddy to visit, I haven’t heard yet today.”
“I guess she’s fine. I haven’t heard anything. I didn’t get a chance to call yet.” Again she felt the guilt. She should have already checked on her mother this morning. “Evan stopped by.”
“What did he want?”
“He’s moving to Arizona with Celia.”
“And?” It was obvious Cooper knew Evan had more to say than just this. Being her divorce attorney gave Cooper the opportunity to see Evan at his worst.
“He asked that I be patient with the support until they get settled out there.”
“Or?” Cooper was an excellent lawyer.
“He might push for full custody and take Luca out there with him.”
“That won’t happen.” His voice made it clear he would go to the ends of the Earth to make sure of it.
“He says I’m dating someone questionable.”
“Sam?”
“Yes. I’m still seeing him.”
Cooper made a noise that sounded like he was surprised.
She’d never taken the time to figure out why their friends hadn’t suggested she and Sam go out before. They’d sent her on a date with Dalton once, but no one so much as mentioned Sam.
“He’s a nice guy. He’s great with Luca,” she defended Sam, though compared to Evan, Sam was a super hero.
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