Sergio keeps his eyes on Jeremy, unable to look away. His cheeks are flushed from the cold, and Sergio has an urge to warm them with his hands. Not that it would help. He is woefully underdressed for the morning chill, and he’s pretty sure his toes are frozen. At least Jeremy was wise enough to wear a thick hoodie over his practice gear.
“Yeah, I think you might be right.”
“Great.” Holden claps Sergio on the shoulder. “Now, can we please go back inside? I’m freezing and my bacon’s probably burning.”
“Yeah,” Sergio says, slowly taking his eyes off Jeremy. As he looks away, something deep inside him tingles in the pit of his stomach. He looks over his shoulder and catches Jeremy stepping through the barn door, heading back inside. The sunken feeling in the pit of his stomach is practically screaming, telling Sergio that having a second chance with Jeremy is key.
Chapter five
“Uncle Sergio! Wake up!”
“Oof …” Sergio coughs and wheezes, then rolls onto his side, curling into a ball, and tries to catch his breath. The sound of Gus’s familiar hiss rings out below him before the cat goes running out the door like an angry, furry specter. “Morning, Henry …”
Henry tilts his head, looking at him quizzically. “Are you alright?”
“I’ve been better,” Sergio says around a labored breath.
Henry’s head tilts the other way. “Are you sick?”
Sick of this shit. “No. It’s been a rough morning.”
“But you just woke up!” Henry throws his hands up, exasperated with his uncle.
Sergio repositions himself to sit up against the headboard and pulls Henry into his lap. “It was a long night.”
Henry’s eyes go wide. “Did you have a bad dream? I had one of those once. Mommy says to not be scared.”
“You know what, kid? You’re right. It was only a bad dream.” It’s more like a living nightmare, but Henry doesn’t need to know that.
Henry leaps off Sergio’s lap, narrowly missing kneeing him in the balls again. “Stay here. I have something to help,” he says as he runs out the door. His footsteps thunder across the hall to his bedroom. There’s a brief pause in the noise before his footsteps start up again in quick succession.
Sergio, now a little wiser, braces himself for Henry’s approach and holds his arms out when he sees Henry come careening into his room, holding a stuffed dog the size of his torso. The sight almost catches him off guard, but Sergio still manages to grab Henry and control his landing as he leaps back onto the bed.
“Here!” Henry yells, holding the toy out for Sergio. Sergio takes it and looks at it. It’s reminiscent of a Saint Bernard except it has comically long, droopy ears.
“What’s this?” Sergio asks.
“It’s a dog.”
“Yes, I can see that.” Sergio chuckles and flaps the stuffed dog’s ears. “But what does it do?”
Henry shrugs and floats his hands up to shoulder height. “Keeps the bad dreams away?”
“Hmm …” Sergio hums, nodding with his lips pulled into a tight line to make himself look serious about what Henry handed him as a solution. He knows full well there is nothing this stuffed dog can do about his current predicament, but he’s certainly not going to crush Henry’s spirit with a reaction that conveys that. “Thank you, Henry,” he says, and places the toy beside him on the bed, tucking it in so only its head is peeking out from underneath the covers. “I believe this dog will be most helpful in fighting off bad dreams.”
Henry’s lips pull into a wide and confident grin.
Sergio ruffles his hair. “Should we go get some breakfast?”
“Yeah!”
“Good,” he says and gets out of the bed, helping Henry down in the process. “I’m starving. Now, go wake up your Uncle Adrien.”
“Okay!” Henry bounds out the door, holding two very enthusiastic thumbs up over his head.
In a rare moment of awareness, Sergio cranes his head out the door and yells, “Gently!”
Henry raises his thumbs over his head once again, then bursts through the door to Adrien’s bedroom. He is greeted by Adrien with a sleepy, “Hey, buddy.” Thankfully, it is not accompanied by the ‘oof’ of Henry kicking Adrien in the balls.
