He grinned at me. “I slept great.”
Of course, he had. Even though I risked injury and possible death, I couldn’t say no when my six-year-old appeared at my door after having a nightmare.
I studied my little man, his dark hair sticking up in all directions. He had more nightmares than his older brothers seemed to have. A weight settled in my gut, worry that past events had somehow embedded the nightmares there.
Charlie flicked my nose. “Stop staring.”
I chuckled, tickling his sides. He squealed and jumped out of bed, a flash of color in his pajamas. They were his favorites, the ones covered in frogs. I’d had to order two more pairs because he refused to sleep in anything else.
“Daaaaaaaaad,” Charlie whined, but I heard laughter in his voice.
“Do me a favor and go wake up your brothers.”
A glint lit Charlie’s eyes—irises a blue so similar to mine. “Can I jump on them?”
“Whatever it takes, Charlie Bear.”
His grin was huge, and he let out some sort of war cry as he ran from my room.
I flopped back down on the mattress, my balls still aching. That kid would be the death of me.
My head throbbed, trying to think about the last time I’d gotten a full night’s sleep. I honestly couldn’t pull it from memory. Maybe the miracle would come this weekend.IfCharlie was exhausted from his uncle’s wedding, and Drew and Luke didn’t pull something stupid.
I would sell a kidney for a good twelve-hour stretch of rest.
“Get the hell out of my room,” Luke bellowed from down the hall.
Shit.
I sat up, swinging my legs over the side of my bed. Twelve hours wasn’t coming anytime soon.
* * *
“You killed the Fruit Loops,”Luke growled at his younger brother.
Drew looked up from his phone with a shrug. “I was hungry.”
Luke turned his thunderous look at me. “And let me guess, we don’t have any more.”
My back teeth ground together as I moved toward the pantry. I’d known the teenage years wouldn’t be easy, but it was as if Luke had morphed into a different human being when he turned sixteen. He mainly communicated in grunts and scowls and never told me what was actually going on in that head of his.
It cut more than he’d ever know. He’d made me a father, and we’d always had a special bond. Fishing, hiking, camping. We did it all. Until he suddenly wanted nothing to do with me, seemingly overnight.
I scanned the pantry shelves: Cheerios. Cocoa Pebbles. Shredded Wheat. Cap’n Crunch. Kix. No Fruit Loops. I winced as I saw that while we had a world of cereal, we didn’t have much else. I needed to get to the grocery store. Stat. I grabbed all the boxes and headed back into the kitchen.
Depositing them onto the island, I met Luke’s pissed-off stare. “Bad news. No Fruit Loops. Good news? We’ve got every other cereal known to man.”
Luke shoved back his stool. “I’ll get something at school.”
I opened my mouth to argue but then closed it. I’d learned that I needed to pick my battles with Luke. And whether or not he ate breakfast at home was not the hill I wanted to die on.
Drew and Charlie didn’t seem to even register their eldest brother’s outburst. It happened so often that it was just background noise to them now. Charlie had his nose shoved into a book about reptiles, and Drew’s fingers flew across his cell phone screen. I’d gotten him the damn thing so he could let me know where he was or if one of his various sports practices ran late, but it was now permanently attached to his hand.
I turned around and scanned the counter. The bananas were way past their prime, but there was a lone orange in the bowl. I reached for it, removed the rind, halved it, then quickly put the pieces in bowls, shoving them at the two kids who still spoke to me.
“Do me a favor and eat something that isn’t just sugar and carbs so I don’t get fired as a dad, okay?”
Charlie giggled and popped a wedge of orange into his mouth. “Not fired.”
