Sadly, no medical emergency materialized. Ty steeled himself. “I told you, I hate that house. It’s huge. I’m not gonna live there alone.”
“No, that would be ridiculous,” Henry agreed mildly. “Why do that when you could move in a DILF you just met and his eight-year-old kid?”
“Friends don’t judge friends, Henry.”
“Of course they do. This is what ‘I told you so’ was invented for. Also beer, which I am making a note to stock up on. I feel like you’re going to need it.”
Fuck it. Ty deserved the ribbing, and at least he had someone to break his fall. “Thanks, Coach.”
OLLIE DIDN’Tknow what excited Theo more—getting to pick a bedroom from one of seven available or Ty asking if he wanted to be a junior baseball coach.
Theo’s eyes went wide as quarters. “Really?”
“Absolutely,” Ty said as though he hadn’t even noticed Ollie’s kid falling head over heels in love with him. “Your dad tells me you’re an expert. And between you and me, we need all the help we can get.” He pushed open the door to yet another bedroom and let Theo wander in to check it out. This one had a double-size four-poster in the same rich dark wood the whole house seemed to be paneled in. Did all that stuff have to be oiled, Ollie wondered? Was it as expensive as it looked? He could probably buy a car for what it cost to panel one room in that stuff.
“Cool. I know a lot about baseball. I can help.” Theo launched himself at the bed. He bounced a few times on the mattress and then proclaimed, “I like this one.” He looked at Ollie. “Is this one okay, Dad?”
He’d picked one several doors farther down than Ollie had hoped. Ollie could switch the bedroom he planned to use, but the one he’d shortlisted was close to the kitchen and had an en suite bath and a mattress that felt like heaven, and he was trying not to suffocate his kid. It was a good sign that Theo felt secure enough to pick his own room. If Ollie had to sneak in at night to listen to him breathe sometimes, they’d all survive. “You sure you’re not going to get lost in that bed?”
Rolling his eyes, Theo whined, “Dad.”
God, Ollie was five hundred years old, and he loved his kid with every fiber of his being. “Just checking. It’s my job as your dad.”
He glanced at Ty to include him in the joke, but then he remembered that Ty’s father sucked. But if hanging around with Theo and Ollie made him think about his dad, he was hiding it well, because that smile held nothing but fond amusement. “All right, well, that’s the hard work done. Are we ready for pizza?”
“So ready.”
Ollie thought Theo was going to speed past them both toward the kitchen, but instead he grabbed their hands and dragged them along in his wake.
“I hope you know what you’re getting into,” Ollie said quietly. He might love Theo with all his heart, but he knew he could be a lot.
But Ty only smiled back. “Are you kidding? He’s flying solo. Yesterday I had twenty-five of him at once. I’ll be fine.” When Theo released them to go look out the window for the pizza guy, he added almost bashfully, “I, uh, I think it’s going to be good for me, actually, to have a kid in here who’ll get tobea kid.”
Yeah, Ollie definitely made the right choice moving in here. “I think it’s good for him too. He was really standoffish with my parents, so I was worried at first that he didn’t want to get attached to any adults after what happened with his mom. But I think he just doesn’t know how to have grandparents, or anyone, really. Allison didn’t have any family.”
That was part of why, when she decided she wanted to have a baby, she didn’t go to a sperm bank. She needed someone she knew would be there to step in if something happened to her. She didn’t want her kid growing up in the foster system the way she had.
Ollie should’ve introduced her to his family when they first became friends. Theo could’ve grown up knowing he had a big family who loved him. But by the time Allison asked Ollie to be a donor, he was about to be deployed, and once she was pregnant, it felt like it was too late, like his family would’ve gotten the wrong idea.
All he could do now was move forward.
“Yeah, that’s—”
Something in Ty’s voice brought Ollie veering sharply back to the here and now. Ty looked like he’d seen his own ghost. “What?”
He puffed out a breath that might have been tinged with dark amusement. “I was going to say that’s always hard.” His words didn’tcrack, but he hit a hitch onhard, like his throat was trying to close up. “And then I realized how right I was. I mean, I’vefeltalone since my mom died. But now I really am the last.”
Fuck, Ollie was such an insensitive asshole. Just because Ty hadn’t gotten along with his father didn’t mean he didn’t love him, hadn’t held out hope that one day things might get better. “Ty, I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me.”
It wasn’t what he wanted to say at all. He wanted to say,You’ve got me. But that was insane. They barely knew each other. And hell, probably the only reason Tydidhave Ollie and Theo—at least physically—wasbecausehis dad had died and he couldn’t face living here alone.
“Don’t,” Ty said. “It’s not like you don’t—let’s not have a pity party.”
Okay. Time to dial back the emotional intensity. “But we already ordered the pizza.”
“I think I still have ice cream left too.”
“Shhh, don’t say that where Theo can hear you.” Not that Ollie wouldn’t let him have ice cream, but if Theo found out about it, Ollie wouldn’t get any.
