I frowned but knew it had been silly of RJ to threaten him in the first place. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Instead of a thank you, like a polite person, Levi tilted his head toward Max and asked, “Hey, what’s his middle name?”
“His middle name?”
“Yeah. It concerns me you named him after your mom. Give me hope you didn’t completely lose your mind.”
“Be nice to my mom.”
He shrugged. Again. “Is it Maxine, Ruby? Max Maxine.”
Ignoring his joke, I blurted, “He doesn’t have one.” The lie fell out of my mouth before I could stop it.
“He doesn’t have a middle name?”
“No.”
“His name is Max Dawson?”
“Yep.”
“That’s it?”
“Stop judging me. God, Levi, what’s it to you what his middle name is?” My anger was defensive and obvious. I reminded my body to play it cool, but I couldn’t help but rip my hands away from him and take a step back. Obvious much, Ruby? I would have rolled my eyes at myself if Levi would have given me a break and stopped glaring at me.
But when he did, he made everything so much worse. “Max, is that true? You don’t have a middle name?”
He raised his eyebrows and stopped jumping over puddles in order to ask, “What’s a middle name?”
A big breath of relief wanted to push out of my chest, but I held it back.
Levi smiled at him. “What’s the name your mom calls you when she’s mad at you? Like my mom always yells at me, Levi Richard Cole. And then I know I’m in big trouble because she used all three of my names.”
Max laughed at Levi’s dramatic story and then thought about what I called him when I was angry. Finally, he admitted, “Maxwell. She always calls me Maxwell.” Before I could totally relax though, he shook his finger at the ground and said in a voice I could only imagine was a high-pitched impression of mine, “Stop that right this second, Maxwell Dane Dawson.”
Levi’s gaze snapped upward and found mine immediately.
“It was my grandfather’s name,” I rushed to say. “Dane. It’s my grandfather’s name.”
That wasn’t true. My grandfather’s name was Dave. Dane was Logan’s middle name. It was a fact I knew from Spanish 1. I’d always loved the name. I thought it had sounded strong and sophisticated. It was a gift I’d wanted to give my son from his father.
“You just lied to me,” Levi stated impatiently.
My face flushed, and I desperately wanted to crawl into a hole and shrivel into a Ruby raisin. “Why do you even care? It’s weird you want to know his middle name. I’m allowed to protect my son from nosy strangers.”
He stood there staring at me, obviously chewing over my accusations. His face was an unreadable mask, emotions flickering too quickly for me to grasp any of them. Finally, he asked, “Your mom’s dad?”
“Yeah. He was around when I was little,” I explained, settling more comfortably in the truth part of the lie. “He meant a lot to me.”
“That’s Logan’s middle name.”
“I know,” I whispered, still unable to look at him.
“If you knew, why didn’t you just tell me?”
I looked to my left, desperate to break Levi’s intent gaze. “Your brother and I were friends once upon a time. I know you miss him. I just… it felt too weird to say his name out loud.”
He nodded, accepting my answer. His focus traveled back to Max. “I’ll bring a real lightsaber next time for you, Max. Or at least the movies. I’ll show you the awesomeness that is Luke Skywalker.”
