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The kid lifted both arms out to the side, flexing with all his might.
“Woo wee, I won’t be tussling with you any time soon,” Otto drew out with a whistle as he pinched Nolan’s tiny muscles.
“You better not!” Nolan was all dimpled grins. “That would be the biggest mistake you ever had.”
Otto shared a knowing look with me, his devotion to this kid nearly as fierce as mine.
“All right, Little Dude, go get your stuff, it’s time to get going,” I told him, knowing I was going to break a little of his heart. “I have an appointment with a client in an hour.”
His shoulders sagged. “Oh, man, do we really have to go?”
“Yup.”
“But I hate it at Miss Liberty’s house.” He whined right through what I knew was a flagrant lie.
I cocked a brow. “You just told me yesterday when I picked you up that you weren’t ready to leave.”
Then he’d hugged the crap out of his babysitter and told her he loved her. Pretty sure there wasn’t anyhateabout it.
“But I’m having more fun here today.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that I have to work, so you’re going to have to go.”
Huffing, Nolan scuffed the sole of his little boot against the grass, grumbling, “Fine,” before he went stomping across the lawn and up the three super wide steps that led to the backside of the elevated wraparound porch. He slammed the door shut behind him when he went inside.
Otto laughed under his breath as he watched him go. “Looks like Little Dude has been hanging out with your surly ass for too long.”
“Fuck you, man,” I said, shaking my head, knowing even though Otto was busting my balls the way he loved to do, there was a shit-ton of validity to it.
Never in my life had I thought I’d be raising a kid.
Not after I’d taken care of Raven, terrified I was failing at every turn. Not after I’d seen the atrocities of this world. Not after I’d become who I had.
But I’d had little choice in the matter, and there’d been nothing I could do but stand up and do right by the little boy. Pray to fuck that I didn’t mess him up.
Wanted to be the hope in his life when that hope had nearly run out.
Thought of it had regret obliterating my heart, nearly knocking me to my damned knees as talons dug into the gnarled, deformed organ inside my chest.
Otto clapped me on the shoulder like he’d read every thought that had just tromped through my mind. “You’re too goddamn hard on yourself, River. Lighten the fuck up.”
I grunted at him, and he grinned.
Otto was a fucking beast. Maybe an inch shorter than me and just as thick. Brown hair a bit on the shaggy side, scruff growing all over his face. Rough as fuck because none of us had come out of our pasts unscathed.
Loved the asshole to pieces, but most of the time, I wondered howthe hell it was possible he was constantly sporting those easy smiles with the lot we’d been given.
With the pact we lived out.
Probably since the dude dipped his dirty dick in nearly everything that walked, fucking away all the strain and stress and grief. Never letting the weight of this sordid world hold him down.
Case in point, he squeezed my shoulder, mischief in his prodding voice when he said, “Seems to me, someone needs to get laid. Sink your fingers into some delicious cherry pie because you’ve been going hungry for too long.”
That was all it took for my mind to go racing, traipsing right back to the girl who’d been splayed out in my chair last week. Woman clinging onto my thoughts and filtering into my dreams.
His grin widened like he thought he’d tapped directly into the problem.
He wouldn’t be wrong.
