Then I head downstairs before his woodpecker-esque tapping pokes a hole right through it.
When I toss open the front door, his arm’s still raised, poised to carry on with the incessant knocking. A brown paper bag hangs off his wrist, swinging. “Hey, Mama.”
Two simple words set a kaleidoscope of butterflies loose in my chest. I always know they’re coming, but if anything, that only makes his greeting more efficacious. The anticipationnearly kills me in the half-second between seeing his face and hearing his voice. One of these days, I’m going to accidentally let slip how much that simple phrase gets to me—the way it bounces around every corner of my brain for hours afterward.
Betty runs in the front door ahead of Colt. She stops to sniff me and accept a quick head pat before she’s gone looking for the person she really came here to see.
“How’s the kiddo?” Colt asks in a hushed tone, handing me a cardboard coffee cup.
“Not to be dramatic, but you’re saving my life with this coffee.” I take a slow sip, letting my body shimmy with the tiniest bit of joy in an otherwise crappy morning, and take him in. He’s somehow even more tan than he was at the river last week, and he also looks like he hasn’t shaved since then. There’s a preemptive tingling in my fingers at the thought of stroking them over his scruffy facial hair. “Jonas is sleeping right now. Guess we’ll see if he can manage to keep anything down once he wakes up.”
Colt walks into my house like he lives here and sets his paper bag on the counter. “I brought you some stuff.”
“You did?” My eyes, puffy from lack of sleep, start to well. “Why?”
The corner of his mouth tilts up. “Because you’re here taking care of a sick kid by yourself. And I’m guessing nobody is taking care of you.”
I shake my head with feigned nonchalance. “I’m not sick.”
“That’s not the only reason somebody might want to care for you.”
My chest constricts as if the strings on a corset are being violently pulled taut. I notice every shallow breath and uneven heartbeat, and maybe Idoneed somebody to help me because I’m about to have a heart attack. But when the cramping dissipates and he’s still standing there, I’m left with an all-over warmth and the feeling that Colt might understand me better than I anticipated.
“Anyway, it was perfect timing, actually. I was at my mom’s last night and she made ahugepot of Italian wedding soup. You’d think she raised ten boys with the amount of food she always makes.” Sure enough, he pulls out two massive soup containers. Enough to feed me and Jonas for at least four nights. “She sent me with leftovers for the guys in the bunkhouse, but I decided you need it more.”
I could cry.
But I can’t, because I’ve already cried in his arms once before, and the thought of repeating that is mortifying. Also, I look—and probably smell, if I had to guess—horrible. No way he’s coming within a five-foot radius of me, and I don’t blame him.
Reaching into the bag, Colt pulls out a small bottle of Canada Dry ginger ale. No explanation necessary.
One bag of sour keys and a tiny green umbrella like the kind restaurants stick in their fruity cocktails. I tilt my head at him, and he carefully opens it, then pops the pointy toothpick end into the vent hole on my coffee lid.
“Closest I could get to a tropical vacation on such short notice.”
I laugh. It’s tired and heavy and half-hearted, though I don’t mean for it to be any of those things.
“Thank you for all of this. It’s…You really didn’t have to.”
But I love that you did.
“Yeah, well…my mom would roll in her grave—she’s still alive so I don’t know why I said that—but she would be the living equivalent of that if she knew I didn’t bring you guys the soup.”
I pick up one of the containers, attempting to make out the contents through opaque plastic. “I bet it’s amazing.”
“My dad says the real reason it’s called Italian wedding soup is because it’s the whole reason he married my mom in the first place.”
“Sold.Soup for breakfast, it is.”
Soon I’m mindlessly heating a pot of soup on the stove, watching Colt mess with the colorful alphabet magnets on my fridge. These days Jonas strictly uses them to spell out cuss words, but I can’t bring myself to throw them in the garbage because I remember sitting in front of this fridge showing him how to spell our names so many years ago.
“You better keep this on your fridge forever.” He holds his hands over his masterpiece, prepared for a grand reveal. The way he’s staring me down is impatient at best.
Setting my spoon down on the counter, I move to stand beside him. I’ve encountered enough DICKs and SHITs and even one FUCK on this fridge. At this point, I ignore them unless I’m expecting company. Nothing is going to rock me, regardless of how immature it is.
He lifts his left hand to reveal the wordsWhit Is Pretty.
“Yeah,sure. What’s under the other one?” I raise an eyebrow, tapping my index finger against his right hand, which is still plastered to the stainless fridge. I have remarkably good insight into the minds of preteen boys—and grown men aren’t much different when you get to the heart of it.
