He still raises a hand to wave hello.
"I'm Jordan."
"Jason."
"And that's Bryce," I tell Wendy.
"It's nice to meet you, too," Wendy smiles at them. "Twins?"
"How could you tell?" They ask in unison, breaking the tension. Even Liam smiles at that.
The guys then lock onto Noah, shyly peeking from his Mama's side.
They crouch simultaneously to get to his eye level and smile.
"What's up, little man?"
"Cool backpack."
"How old are you?"
"You gonna be a mechanic like your dad?"
"Yeah, you gonna be our boss one day?"
Noah giggles at the barrage of questions and shakes his head.
"No, I'm going to be a famous artist!"
"Sick!" They exclaim dramatically, holding out their hands for him to high-five, which Noah does.
"Do you wanna see?" Noah asks excitedly now, taking his sketchbook out of his bag. I watch as Noah shows the twins his sketches, explaining his creative process in great detail, and the twins listen intently, ask questions, and my son lights up from the interaction.
Liam's smiling at it too, and Jordan pulls him into the conversation, asking about basketball.
"Atlas," Wendy calls, and I turn, seeing her nod toward the office, which I follow her back into.
"He won't have any distractions," Wendy says, holding up Liam's cellphone and placing it in her purse. "I would try to talk to him this weekend. Don't rush him, he's like you, he won't react well to that."
The words click in my head. Everyone's always told us how much Liam is my mini-me, how he looks just like me, how he acts like me.
He's just like me, so I should approach him as I would want to be approached—on common ground.
"I will. Thank you."
Wendy nods before her eyes scan me from head to toe. "How are you doing? Any nightmares last night?"
The question and the answer make me grin. "No."
"Good, I'm happy to hear that," she says, smiling, before it. "You know you can always call me if you have them."
"I know, but I need to be able to work through them on my own sometimes."
"Yeah, but—" Wendy pauses and takes a deep breath beforecontinuing. "You're not alone, Atlas."
I swallow hard. Then again, trying to clear my throat clogged with emotion.
"Thank you."
