Page 47 of Wolf

“I mean it.” I tap the tip of his nose.

“Boop!” he says and then scampers out of the bathroom where I’ve been cleaning and tightening loose pipes and fixtures. His angelic voice rings out. “Mommy, look at what Wolf gave me to play with!”

I lean out of the bathroom and shout down the hall. “I did not say play with it! I explicitly said not to do that!”

Artie shrieks with laughter. Julia rounds the corner, the sight of her robbing the breath from my lungs. “It’s okay,” she says, smiling. “I heard you telling him.”

She rests one hand on her curvy hips. I think they used to call those childbearing hips and while that’s not wrong because she did have a child, they’re so much more than that. They’re the perfect place to rest my hands when kissing her, to hold her close to me so she can feel my big cock grinding on her.

“Good, I don’t want to be the one blamed when he breaks his toys by pinchin’ them.”

“He’s much too nice with his things to do that,” Julia reassures me. She motions to the bathroom. “How’s it going?”

“Went pretty good, got a lot of rust and build-up removed and replaced that toilet flapper. Tightened up some loose parts here and there.” I feel like a regular handyman, a career plumber. I’d say I got those job skills while in prison, but I had them before that. The work I did in prison was factory conveyor belt shit, pushing buttons to prep the pieces of fabric that came down my line.

“I had the best little assistant, would you believe it? No one’s ever been so good at handin’ me things.”

Julia touches my arm and leans close to me, her soft breasts pressing on me. “You’re good with him, you know that? He likes you a lot.”

“I like him, too. Didn’t think I liked kids, but he’s changin’ my mind, maybe.”

She smiles again, and how I wish I didn’t fuck up so much and so often. I’d get to see more of that big smile that lights up her whole face and erases the years we were apart.

“Speaking of toys,” I say. Julia gives me a warning look. I wasn’t going to go there. I smirk. “You mind if I bought him a ball or something? You think he’d even like a ball? I feel like all boys should have one.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do anything like that. He likes you without the bribery.”

“I want to do it,” I insist.

Because spending time with the kid is igniting brand-new sensations in my chest, in my heart. I wish I was his dad. I wish I got to spend more time with him. I’ll take what I can get though and if I can make him happy with a ball from the dollar store, hell yeah, I’ll do it. I’ll get him five, ten.

“Yes, I think he’d like a ball to toss around,” Julia says. She nudges me. “Then you can play catch with him. Someone else has to because I have butterfingers.”

I picture myself and the boy out on the yard on a late, warm evening, tossing a baseball back and forth. My throat tightens. “I’ll get him a ball. In the meantime, you think he’d like this?”

I pull a scrap of green folded paper from my pocket. Julia takes it and studies it. “Origami. Oh, is it a frog?”

“Yeah. Push down on its ass and then let go fast.”

Julia gives me an amused look, then does as I ask. With the folded frog in her palm, she pushes down on the rump and then releases. The frog hops right out of her hand and tumbles through the air to the carpeted floor. “He’s going to love that. How’s it work?”

“The legs are folded so when you press on them, they’re like a spring compressin’. Let go and he hops.” I think that’s how it works, anyway. I didn’t fuckin’ invent origami, I just follow the directions in the book.

Julia calls for Artie and he comes running with the wrench. “Trade you,” I say, and offer him the frog.

He happily makes the trade and holds the frog up close to his eye. “What is it?”

I show him how it works and he squeals and claps his hands. He grabs the idea right away and soon he’s got that frog hopping all over the house, across the hall, off tables, and from one of Ruby’s legs to the other. She seems as captivated as her grandson and while most of that is probably for show, it lights up my heart to watch them playing.

Seeing as they’re occupied, I take Julia by the arm, and we go into her bedroom. She sits down on the bed and looks up at me. “What’s up?”

“I’ve been thinkin’ about Artie.”

“Well, I got that.” She leans back on her hands. That pushes her full breasts forward. Like a horny teen, I can’t take my eyes off her tits. “Seeing as you want to buy him toys and used your spare time to fold him a frog.”

I made that frog while waiting for the microwave to heat up my breakfast sandwich. I guess what counts really is the thought, that I wanted to use my skills to make something for the boy and did.

I sit down on the bed beside her. “I meant in a different way.”