“Showing your dads that we’re okay.”
A text comes in immediately.
Daddy: Very cute sweetie
Dad: Tell him we say hello.
“They love me,” Rowan says, a bit too arrogantly. His hand taps my hip once, his eyes still on my screen, and I realize I’m still seated on his lap.
I make no move to remove myself. “They tolerate you.”
“They love me,” he says again.
“You’re so annoying,” I mumble, and it only earns me a soft chuckle.
“By the way,” he says with a cocky smirk, “I know your passcode is your birthday backwards.”
“It is not.”
Rowan arches a brow and locks my phone. He taps the screen then types in my passcode.
2202.
My phone unlocks. I don’t know why I’m surprised.
“See,” he gloats. “February twenty-second.”
“You’re ugly,” I grumble, snatching my phone back from him and moving back to my own seat.
“Yeah, I know.” He sighs but he’s half smiling.
My thumb opens the photo again and I hold back the little smile banging against my lips to be let out. My finger moves quickly and before I know it, I’ve set it as his contact photo.
“More ketchup?” Rowan asks, holding out another little plastic cup filled with the sauce.
“Obviously,” I say, and steal it from him for my mozzarella sticks. “It’s the best condiment.”
Rowan grins. “Obviously.”
“Thank you,” I mumble.
He keeps his smile, a warm white one that settles me just enough to feel comfortable here with him. To feel okay with the layer of vulnerability that he somehow has the ability to expose. It sounds weird, but Rowan makes me feel like an onion.
“Still don’t want to talk about it?”
I shake my head and bite into the cheesy appetizer, a long string stretching from my lips to the stick. “No.”
“Okay.”
Rowan is a safe space, I realize. If I don’t want to talk, he doesn’t make me. Rowan will allow me to sit in silence and do it with me. He’s who will stay by my side, ready to reach out his hand at any moment.
If I fall off the cliff, he’ll grab my arm and pull me back up. If I fall off the dock, he’ll keep me from drowning. But he doesn’t tell me,Don’t get too close; you don’t know how to swim.He allows me the space to be, he’s kind of like a guardian angel that lets lessons be learned before they save you.
And I want to be that for him too, I just don’t know how.
“What are you thinking about?” Rowan asks, sprinkling salt over the fries.
“Too many things,” I murmur.
