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“Good, I was worried that we’d overstepped.”
Avery wipes her eyes with the back of her hand then shakes her head.
“No, not even a little bit. I love how much you care about my son. Thank you for this.”
“He’s a great little kid,” Jamie says. “Very easy to like.”
“Seriously, it means a lot. Not too many men would be willing to take on a single mom and her kid, and somehow, I found three of them. You have no idea just how much I appreciate your accepting him. It really makes me feel like this actually could go somewhere. Thank you.”
“We knew what we were getting into.” I kiss her temple. “Our lives have gotten so much better with you in it. I can only speak for myself, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I would.” Wesley grins. “I think maybe in a few years, if you don’t get tired of us, we could add a few more kiddos into the mix.”
Avery pales to an alarming shade of white.
“I’m so sorry,” he says quickly. “That was out of line. I never should have joked about it. Especially not when we haven’t been dating for very long. Are you okay?”
“No, not really. That was absolutely the last thing I expected you to say. It caught me completely off guard and I just… There’s just been a lot going on lately, and I feel like all my emotions are on a hair trigger. Everything feels like too much right now.”
“Has something else happened with your ex?”
“Flowers were sent to my condo today, but I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before that happened. There might be a bigger problem, though. I?—”
“Ma, Look!” Leo shouts.
She practically deflates with relief at the interruption. “I can see you from up here. What do you want me to see? I’m ready.”
“No, here,” he insists.
“Hold tight. I’m coming.”
She races down the stairs so fast she almost blurs.
“He’s sending things to her house now? Are you fucking kidding me? Why is she just so blase about this? I’m going to kill him,” Wesley growls.
“I’m just as angry as you, but beating him into a pulp is only going to land you in prison. Do you really think Avery is going to visit you there?”
“I know you’re right. I just hate feeling so powerless. I just wish I could do something.”
“We’re paying for her lawyer. We’re staying with her at night and driving her to work. There isn’t anything else we can do,” Jamie says from the grill.
“It’s only a matter of time until we have enough evidence to file for a restraining order. We just have to keep doing what we’re doing.” I sigh. “But there’s more that’s upsetting her. She was going to tell us before Leo called for her. I don’t think whatever it is has anything to do with her ex. Whatever it is has to do with us. She looked ready to faint when you made that quip about kids.”
“Maybe there’s a bigger issue going on between the four of us that we don’t know about. We’ll have to try and get it out of her once Leo is asleep, but until then, we have to let it go.”
I give Wesley a hard stare to make sure my point got across.
He holds up his hands in surrender. “I got it. I got it.”
The two hours between dinner and Leo’s bedtime seem to take four times that long. Avery seems aware of this deadline too because as each second ticks by, she gets exponentially more tense.
Since she’s not relaxed, neither is Leo.
Getting him to settle down takes all four of us. I try every psychological trick and meditation in the book, but he doesn’t fall asleep until the sixth reading of Dump Truck’s Day Out.
When he’s finally asleep, we settle onto Jamie’s overstuffed couches. Avery pulls a blanket off the back of her seat and wraps it around her shoulders like it’s armor.
It’s dead quiet.
