Page 92 of The Only Thing That's Real
“I do. How about you?”
“Trucks, Mama?”
“Okay, but you have to clean up your mess when you’re done.”
She sets him down and without a second thought, he takes me by the hand to a basket in the corner by the brown leather chair. I didn’t notice it earlier, but it’s full of trucks and dinosaurs. He really is growing up here.
“Sit.” It’s an order, not a request.
Plopping my ass down on the tack room floor with my back against the oversized chair, I marvel at the little blond boy in front of me. His pudgy little fingers fish through the basket of toys until he finds what he’s searching for. He sets a dump truck in front of me. “Mox. Dump truck.” He may not be able to say my name, but he can say dump truck perfectly.
He selects a tractor for himself before placing four dinosaurs on the ground. “Vroom, vroom,” he says, driving his tractor around us. I’m in awe listening to his sound effects. The bit of spit on his lip is the sweetest thing. He crawls around me, eventually driving his truck over my outstretched legs. He follows the path of the tractor, climbing over me until he’s sitting between my outstretched legs loading the dinosaurs into the dump truck. “Vroom, vroom.”
For the next five minutes, we vroom, vroom all over the tack room. We crash into each other. We race. We get lost in our world. So lost, I startle when Mia speaks.
“I’m sorry, Knox.”
Currently on all fours, I drop my head between my shoulders, wishing we weren’t back to apologies. If I think about what I’ve missed with him, the anger I’ve kept at bay will rear its ugly head and nobody needs that.
“No more sorries,” I say, sitting on my butt to look at her, unsurprised to find tears streaming down her face.
Sawyer crawls into my lap. “Why Mama cry?”
Squeezing him tight to me, I kiss the top of his feather soft hair. “Because she loves you so much, buddy.”
Pulling out of my arms, he flies a dinosaur in front of us, nonplussed at the emotions filling the small space.
“How are we gonna do this?” The fear in her voice is palpable.
The anxiety overwhelming me when I arrived has taken a backseat, because even if I don’t know how, I know we’re gonna give this little guy the life he deserves. A life full of love, acceptance, and protection.
“We’re gonna take it day by day,” I tell her. “Figure it out as we go.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“Hardly, but we won’t let him know anything other than how loved he is. I think we can agree on that.”
She sits on a stool next to the island. “We can.”
I can’t help but mention something that’s been on my mind. “What’s he gonna call me?”
“That’s up to you.”
“Uncle Knox doesn’t work for me. I want to respect your wishes and keep his life private from the prying eyes of the world, but I don’t want him to think for one minute I didn’t want to shout from the mountaintops that he’s mine. We need to find some sort of balance, because let’s face it, Angus is already his dad.” My chest constricts as the words come out of my mouth. “I don’t want to confuse him.”
“Are you saying you want to make it legal? Change his birthcertificate?”
“The thing is, if you list me as his father, the whole world will know. They will converge on Goose Hollow and upset his life.”
She frowns. “It’s not fair to you. None of this is fair to you.”
“It’s not about me. When he’s old enough to understand everything, if he wants to change his name or wants to be adopted legally by me or Angus, that will be his decision.” My stomach churns to think of my baby brother adopting my child, but it’s not about me.
“Knox—”
“Right now, the town knows him as a Powell. This keeps the prying eyes of the press away.”
“I’m not sure that works for me.”
