“Hey, you’re talking to a teacher here, kid.”
“You’re a gym teacher. The good kind. You don’t count.”
“Well, tell that to my college loans and all the hours I spent studying for my license.”
I could hear Riot in the kitchen. He was singing off-key to a Linkin Park song. I smiled softly to myself, remembering many nights listening toHybrid Theoryon my iPod with Riot, sharing the same headphones.
Before I went to see him, I first walked to where Hawk was sitting on the floor, setting up his planes and cars to play. He was right next to the couch, practically touching Bel, and didn’t have his headphones on.
I smiled as I squatted down in front of him.
“Hey, Hawk. Whatcha doing?”
He made the sign for “play.” “You’re playing with your planes?”
A nod. “Did you have fun at school today?” He was in pre-K. Another nod. He went back to playing. I wasn’t going to get more from him, but it was still a huge improvement from just a few months ago. He still might rarely use words, but at least he was communicating. Ri and I had had long talks about it, but after hours and hours of research and going down more rabbit holes than I’d ever admit to, we’d decided we weren’t going to push Hawk to speak verbally. He was making major improvements using sign and we were so fucking proud of him.
“Where is everyone else?” I asked the twins.
“Knox is on a date,” Rue informed me in a singsong voice. He was? How did I not know that? I’d have to ask Riot about it. “I think Stormy is in the kitchen with Riot. Cruz is in our room. I don’t know where Wynter is.”
“Alright. I’m gonna say hi to Riot and eat dinner. Behave.”
“Boo!!”
Rolling my eyes, I left them to their shenanigans and followed the terrible singing into the kitchen.
Riot had his back to me, washing dishes. I froze in the entryway, watching him unobserved, taking a moment to get myself together before we had to interact and I had to act normal, like every minute I got to spend with Riot wasn’t simultaneously both a blessing and killing me slowly from the inside out.
He must’ve taken a shower when he’d gotten home from work, because instead of clay-stained jeans and a shirt, he was wearing black joggers and a royal-blue muscle tank that saidWilliamsand had the number 55 on the back. My shirt from my football days. It was faded and stretched out and way too big for Riot’s narrow frame, and the sexiest fucking thing I’d ever seen. Riot being in my clothes unleashed this primal part of me I worked so hard to lock down. His chin-length hair was pulled back in a stubby ponytail.
I was relieved he hadn’t seen me yet because if he did right now, he’d know everything I’d been hiding since we’d been thirteen. Every secret, every time I’d pretended to be okay with only being friends—it had to be right there on my fucking face for the whole world to see.
I sucked in a breath, glad that the music was blocking out my heartbeat that sounded impossibly loud in my ears. My eyes trailed down his tattooed arms, the dark sleeves going from shoulder to wrist on both sides, muscular from throwing clay around all day, and to his round, firm ass. They continued to trail down to his bare feet, which were tapping along to the music.
“Hey.” Fuck, did my voice sound shaky?
Riot turned around and . . . there it was. That fucking smile. The one that had been bringing me to my knees since middle school. Riot’s smiles had been harder to come by back then. They’d been harder to come by for me too—I had just lost my parents and had to move all the way across the country to this tiny East Coast town to stay with my aunt and uncle. We’d both been outcasts, the new kid and the poor one with a drug-addicted mom, both lost and so, so fucking sad.
I hadn’t had a clue what my sexuality was back then. My life had been football and surfing until Dad had died, and then it had been all about dealing with that. It wasn’t until much later that I’d figured out that I was likely bisexual, but that label that would never mean much to me because Riot St. James was the only person I’d ever want. It had never been a question in my mind. However that looked, I knew there would never be anyone else.
“Hey.” He shut off the water and wiped his hands on his sweatpants before walking up to me, arms open.
I didn’t need an invitation and immediately folded myself into Riot. I might have a few inches of height on him, and he was half my width, but nothing made me feel safer than being in his arms.
“How was your day?” he asked, kissing my cheek.
“Long. Tiring. But good. How was yours? How was RainnyDayArt?”
He snorted before untangling himself from me. I tried not to mourn the loss of his warm body. “She was cool. She signed a shirt and FaceTimed Wynter during her lunch break. Wynter’s still pissed she didn’t meet her in person though.”
I laughed and walked over to the small table in the breakfast nook, where Stormy was sitting in his booster seat, coloring. He was already in his dinosaur pj’s, his hair damp from his bath. I leaned over and kissed his honey-colored curls. “Hi, Stormy.”
“Hi, Papa.” He went back to coloring.
We had a bigger table in the family/dining room, but unless we were all eating together, we mostly had meals here. The family table was the first thing Riot and I had made together when we’d first bought this house. We’d never had a space big enough for all of us, and it had been a dream of ours to make it happen. We barely had room for the massive table, but we’d made it work.
“Hungry?” he asked, but he was already walking to the fridge. “I made ziti and garlic bread.”
