“Hey.” He scratched her head. She curled into his hand like a cat. “Damn, I love you like this. All sweet and clingy.”
She poked his ribs. “I’m not clingy. I just like you right now. A lot.” She sighed, resting her weight over him. Her fingers circled over his chest.
“Whatcha thinkin’?”
“Nothing.” Her answer was too quick. She was the worst liar. He chuckled causing her to shift to her stomach, resting her chin on his chest, gazing up at him.
“What?”
“You can’t lie for shit, that’s what.”
Her eyes cast down to his neck and flickered back up. “I don’t know if it’s okay to ask you...I just don’t…” She scanned his face searching. Whatever she wanted to ask had her debating on how he would take it. “It’s personal.”
He nodded, “Ahh…well, let me save you the embarrassment of asking.” He smirked. “Eight inches.” He wiggled his brows.
She closed her eyes. Watching the smile spread across her face and her body shake over him had him grinning.
“What? That wasn’t the question?”
Her laugh was soft, almost like a blanket covering him, a sound ringing in his ears like a favorite song. He wanted to hear replay over and over. Her body settled to as her laughter died off. It wasn’t what she was going to ask, he knew that. Seeing her fumble through her words, afraid to ask didn’t sit well with him.
“Hey, pretty girl,” he whispered, and waited for her to look up. “You can ask me anything.Anything.”
Her lips pulled down in a frown, her brows furrowed in stress. She drew in a breath before opening her mouth. “Do you ever think about your mom? Not your mom…” She stammered. “I mean, Cheryl.”
His hands caressing her back, stilled. Notbecauseshe asked but how she did it. Her acknowledgement of knowing his biological mother was not who he considered his mom, tugged somewhere deep at his heart.
“The truth?”
She nodded as her lips tightened into a straight line. He rarely talked about Cheryl, at least not to his family. They allhad their past before being adopted. Some harsher than others but all of them choosing to leave it in the past.
“I never used to. Once my mom and dad took me in, adopted me, they were it for me. Never looked back.” His fingers slid over her soft back. It was soothing. “Until a few months back. After T announced Cassie was pregnant, I thought about her a lot. Ya know, those two, the family, everyone so fucking excited.” He snickered. “Even me. I got to thinking this is how it should be, ya know. I don’t know why but for the first time in my life I just had to know, where she was, what happened to her.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah. Looked into her, she had gotten married, had two kids. Lives about two hours from here.” He glanced down at Kenzie. There was a pain in her eyes, a mixture of sorrow and pity. Bogs smiled, not from happiness, but the irony of the situation of how Cheryl’s life turned out. “Ya know, I figured she was either dead or lived some fucked-up life, chasing after some guy, same as when I was a kid. The search I did on her proved to be the opposite though. She worked part time at her husband’s hardware store, volunteered at the school, belonged to a church.” He sighed. “Had to see it though. See it for myself.”
“What did you do?”
“Drove down to her place, parked a few doors down and waited. I watched the house for an hour before I saw her. She wasn’t anything like I remembered. She was carrying a case of water, trailed by two boys, one in a baseball uniform, the other running behind his brother flying a toy plane. The little guy, man, looked just like me when I was that age.” Bogs snorted. “Damn good-looking kid.”
She dug her fingers into his chest. Maybe on reflex or to comfort him, either way, it felt good to feel her touch. The tears welling in his eyes were anotherthing. He didn’t want that.
“Did you talk to her?”
“No, just watched. Took her a few trips to pack up her minivan. Watched the boys chase after each other, laughing and smiling. Happy. When she locked up the house, she came down the stairs saying something to them with a big smile on her face. I couldn’t hear but the boys ran over to her. She leaned down, said something else, and they laughed. They got in the car and left. And then so did I. Leaving the past in the past.”
His search into Cheryl was far more in depth than he told Kenzie. He did background checks, hacked into children’s services, and the accounting firm that handled her husband’s business. Everything came up clean, no records or reports. They were the average happy family.
“You don’t want to meet her? Or your brothers?”
“She turned her life around, made good on the promise to be a good mom to my grandparents. Even if it wasn’t to me, her kids are taken care of and happy. That’s good enough for me. Around her, I’d always be that eight-year-old kid, scared and unwanted.” He wrapped his arms around her back pulling her deeper into his chest. “That’s not me anymore. I got my family, my dad and mom who loved me, brothers and a sister who piss me off on a daily basis, but I wouldn’t change that shit for anything.” He leaned into her and she rushed up, meeting his lips for a salty kiss from her tears. “And I got you.”
“You got me, Bogs,” she whispered.He rested his head back and stared up at the ceiling. Even with his admission it was in the past, a cut so deep never really faded. The mood was heavy. She’d change it.
“So, are you ever going to tell me your real name?”
He peered down and smirked. “Gotta promise ya won’t laugh.”
