Page 74 of Love Expert

“What’s wrong, baby?” I hold his weight with just one hand under his butt, his legs wrapped around my hips. I use my other hand to brush hair off his face and search for blood. I swipe his cheeks. I turn his head left, then right. I study his throat and the pulse frantically pounding against tissue-thin skin. I even lift his shirt and examine his stomach. “What happened?” Desperate, I yank him in and crush his small body against mine. “Did you get hurt?”

He cries against my neck, shaking his head. “No.”

“Did your dad get hurt?” I cast horrified eyes across my dark lawn. “Jeremy? Is your dad hurt?”

“No.” He wraps his arms around my neck and squeezes tight enough to threaten my life. “He’s okay.”

“Then what is it, honey? What’s wrong?”

“It’s the storm,” he howls. “I thought thestorm hurt you.”

“Me?” My heart flip-flops in my chest. “Oh my gosh, baby. You were worried aboutme?”

“I didn’t see you in days,” he rasps. “I even left notes in my window for you to see.”

I push him back just far enough to scour his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy this week, I’m not sure I’ve even looked out my window at all.”

“Magnolia?”

My breath catches as I look up and meet Billy’s heavy stare. He waits on his porch out of the incoming storm, his shirt whipping and moving with the wind. Licking his lips, he simply crooks his finger and destroys the willpower I’ve spent days cultivating. “Bring him back over,” he calls out. “Quick, before the rain falls.”

“You want me to take you home, handsome?” I kick my car door shut and ignore the massive file box on my passenger seat. The mess it represents. The lost income hidden amongst its pages, and the humiliation of an event unraveled. Leaving it all behind, I hug Jeremy to my chest and cross my yard. “You scared me for a second there. I thought you got hurt or something.”

“I hate storms so much,” he groans. “I hate them more than I hate anything else in the entire world.” He chokes out a whimper as thunder booms overhead. “Why does the sky even need to do that, huh? It’s loud and scary and for no good reason at all.”

“Maybe the sky is feeling big feelings.” I step over the lavender garden and bring my eyes up as Billy’s broad hands join mine to support Jeremy’s weight. His nearness startles me. His stare guts me. But his soft smile heals hurts I’ve been inflicting upon myself for days.

“Let’s get him inside,” he murmurs, carefully guiding me up his porch steps, across the porch, and through his front door. He forces me all the way in, till the heating thaws some of the chill stuck in my clothes, then he turns on his heels and locks his door with a declarative snick.

Jeremy’s fractured breathing pounds in my ear, and his thundering heartbeat hammers against my chest.

“That’s a pretty big reaction to a storm, huh?” I make my way into their living room without Billy’s express invitation, head to the long couch Jeremy and I always defer to, then I sit and shuffle all the way back so he straddles my thighs and curls under my chin.

I run my fingers through his hair, gently scratching his scalp, and with my other hand, I rub slow circles against his back. “Did something bad happen to you in a storm one time?” I press a kiss to his temple. Anotherto his cheek, but when my lips touch his tears, my heart fractures a little. “What happened?”

“I just hate storms,” he whimpers. “I hate them cos they’re loud and dangerous and mean.” Shakily, he sits up and meets my eyes. “Usually when my dad is at home with me and then they call him back to work, it’s cos it’s storming out and someone got hurt.”

“Aww, honey.” I cup his cheeks and pull him back in. “So you were already afraid of storms, and then it feels worse, because half the time, your dad has to leave and help someone else.”

He buries his nose against my neck and nods.

“I bet that makes you feel extra scared.”

He nods again.

“Because you’re scared he’ll get hurt, too. But you know what?” I toe my shoes off and twist on the couch, turning us so we lie side by side, with my back to the room and our legs tangled the way we like. “Those people your dad helps? They’re having theworstday of their lives those times. Something really awful already happened to them, and so then he comes along and he gets to be their hero.” I lay my head on the arm of the couch, snuggling in with this little boy who isn’t even mine, but thrilling in the way he presses his cheek to my chest anyway.

He just… fits.

Even though he didn’t come from me. Even though it wasn’t my DNA that created him. Even though I missed the first eight years of his life, we fit.

“I know it can be scary watching your dad leave, and it’s especially tough, because those are the nights you need him the most. But you’re also pretty lucky, don’t you think, that you get him all the other nights?” I set my thumb beneath his eye and wipe the tears from his skin. “Theyonly get him one time, one night, and they’re so scared and sad and lonely, they probably don’t even have time to appreciate their hero. But you get him forever, and forever is fun, right? Like when you play ball in the yard.”

“Or the times we make human soup at Ramone’s?”

I exhale a watery laugh. “Yeah, those times, too. Or the times I sneak donuts through the fence and you spend all day long hiding them from him. It’s funny, because he’s a policeman, but we keep the donuts for ourselves.”

He snickers, snot bubbles tickling the base of his nostrils.