AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She rolled her eyes and started to light into me, but Wolfie bounded down the steps, a huge grin stretched across his face. “Uncle Adam! Aunt Rea! What’s my surprise?” he asked, slightly out of breath, as he nearly ran smack into my legs.
“Whoa there, buddy. How about a ‘hi’ first?” I teased him.
“Hi.” He laughed at his own silliness, then asked, “what’s the surprise?”
I smiled at him. “You’ll see soon enough, but first, you gotta tell us about your first day,” I told him, leading him towards the car. I couldn’t help but notice how he reached out and grabbed Reagan’s hand as we started toward my car. I also couldn’t help but notice the startled smile that curved Reagan’s lips. The sight of their interlocked hands caused a pang of longing in my chest.
I didn’t even recognize who I was anymore. Who was this guy whose throat was clogging with emotion? Who was this guy mooning over potential family life?
Wolfie started talking excitedly about his new friend Tyrek, the classroom pet, and all the games he played at recess. By the time he even bothered to take a breath, we were halfway to the cafe that Reagan had texted me the directions to earlier. “Oh, I almost forgot,” Wolfie said, and from the vantage point of the rearview mirror, I could see him digging in his backpack. A sheath of paper was pulled out and slid across the center console between Reagan and me.
I was driving, so I couldn’t examine the paper at first, but I could tell from the quick intake of breath from Reagan that it must have been something pretty important.
“Woflie, you drew this?” she asked haltingly.
“Yup, do you like it?”
To an outsider, and I’m sure to Wolfie, the brief hesitation on Reagan’s part would not have been noticeable, but I felt it—that startled moment that hit whenever Reagan was not sure how to handle an unexpected emotion. “Wolfie, this is amazing,” she enthused. “You’ve got a real talent, bud.”
We pulled up to a red light, and I took the moment to look at the paper in Reagan’s hand. It was a crayon drawing showing three people. At first, I thought Wolfie had drawn himself and his parents, but then I saw my name beneath the crayon man and a misspelled version beneath a crayon woman. The man and woman were each holding a hand of Wolfie’s depiction of himself. There was another sucker punch to the gut, this kid really knew how to deliver those. “She’s right, buddy, that’s fantastic,” I told him truthfully. As much as that drawing warmed my heart, I couldn’t help but be concerned about the reticence I felt in Reagan.
But that concern would have to be shoved aside once we made it to the cafe. To be fair, the look of joy on Wolfie’s face served as a perfect distraction, and for her part, Reagan did a good job of concealing whatever was bothering her—for the most part, that is.
At one point, after we had finished eating and Wolfie was playing the Pokémon-themed pinball machine just a few feet from our booth, there was a distant, troubled expression on Reagan’s face as she stared off at something behind me. When I followed her line of vision, I could see she was staring right at Wolfie.
What was there to be troubled by? He was obviously happy at that moment, but when I looked back at Reagan to ask her what was up, I found her staring at me with that same expression. Whatever words I’d planned on teasing her with died on my lips when I saw the open fear in her eyes.
I realized a lot had taken place that day, but the look in her eyes cut to the quick, and there was no amount of teasing words to handle it. This was serious. “Reagan? You’re starting to freak me out—what’s going on in that head of yours?” I asked her, but before she could respond, Wolfie came bounding back towards our booth. Reagan was quick to shield her expression and put on a cheery smile for the boy.
“Come on, Aunt Rea, come play with me.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her to one of the games.
I knew there was no way she would deny him that request, just like I knew there was no way she would deny him when he asked on the way home if she would stay and help tuck him in that night. He had her wrapped around his little finger, and even though I knew it would be a struggle for her stubborn pride to hang around my place after the morning we’d spent together there, there was a part of me that was not-so secretly pleased that she would be there. Maybe then she would see just how right all of this could be.
***
“Alright, so what crawled up your butt?”
Her mouth pressed into a tight line before she sighed and said, “Always overly concerned about what’s in my butt, huh, Adam?”
I smiled at her. “Of course. I find anything that has to do with your backside intriguing.”
She shook her head as she headed towards the kitchen and began pulling things from the fridge. “I just don’t think—” she started quietly, then stopped for a moment, looking down at her hands.
“Go on, counselor, spit it out,” I coaxed her softly.
She looked at me furtively, then busied her hands again with making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She sighed before finally saying in a resigned voice, “I just don’t think it’s a good idea to give Wolfie the wrong idea. I mean, I love being around him, but at some point, you all will just want to get into your own routine. I won’t be a part of that, and—”
“Why not?”
“Why not, what?” she asked, stopping her frantic peeling of an orange.
“It seems like the answer is simple: just be a part of the routine. He’s happy, you’re happy, I’m happy—case closed,” I explained simply.
She sighed unhappily. “It’s not that simple, and you know why.”
I dared to move closer to her as she sectioned up the orange and plopped the pieces into a little plastic bag. “No, I don’t know why, so enlighten me,” I prodded. I moved in beside her like I was approaching a skittish deer.
Her eyes shot daggers at me. “Don’t play that game with me, Rollins, you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
