Rowan turned to gape at Jamie. “Do you have all your teeth?”
“Row…” Tyler started.
“Actually,” Jamie began, feeling a smile tug at his mouth. “I’m missing a few.” And then he reached up and pulled one side of his mouth to the side, revealing an obvious gap in the back of his mouth.
Rowan stared, transfixed. “Can you eat chips?”
Jamie laughed. “Yeah, I can eat chips just fine.”
His eyes lifted at that moment, catching Tyler staring at hisface. It was a quiet moment, nothing remarkable about it, except for the way Tyler looked at him with what might have been curiosity.
Like maybe, just maybe, Jamie wasn’t the only one who felt something.
CHAPTER 4
TYLER
BANG. BANG. BANG.
There were days where parenthood felt like a noble endeavor, an opportunity and experience bestowed by the gods. Like a fragile, gentle thing that deserved care, attention, the lightest touch.
There were also days when it felt like Tyler had been thrown into a fighting pit armed only with four hours of sleep and a kitchen towel.
“I’m a kitty, Papa,” Rowan wailed, his wide blue eyes brimming with tears. “And kitties don’t eat sweet potaybados!”
Tyler ran a hand over his face, trying to hide his frustration. Sweet potatoes had been one of Rowan’s favorite foods up until five minutes ago, when his son had informed him that kitties did not, under any circumstances, eat them.
Now the scramble he’d made with pork sausage, eggs, spinach and sweet potatoes sat untouched on the plate, and he had a hungry and raging three-year-old on his hands. Rowan had woken up at 5:45 that morning, and Tyler hadn’t had a chance to do anything more than brush his teeth and throw on a thick, baggy sweater in a color palette that reminded him of a Vermont autumn. Rowan was still in his mismatched pajamas: jack o'lantern-patterned pants and a long sleeve shirt with a rainbow butterfly print.
They needed to leave in twenty minutes so Tyler could deliver groceries for two hours, and then they were going to check out a potential new place to live.
It still didn’t feel real that the man who’d knocked himself out in Tyler’s front yard just happened to be a professional hockey player with a lead on a place to live. He’d fully prepared himself for Sully’s offer to be lip-service, the kind of thing someone who has everything says to the poor single dad.
He hadn’t expected anything when he’d called the number Jamie had given him, but then a woman had picked up on the first ring. Dotty had been warm, friendly, and let him know their last tenant had just moved out when she married her fiancé. Tyler had learned that Dotty and her wife, Sandra, were retired school teachers who loved kids.
It was hard to imagine it all working out. Sure, what they asked for in rent was affordable, but he’d need to figure out childcare if he wasn’t living at the house with Annabeth anymore. He’d looked at some of the local daycares, but most of them had a waiting list.
He didn’t know how it was going to work, but he was trying.Theywere trying.
“Row,” he said gently, walking over to stand beside the wooden learning tower where Rowan was glaring daggers at his plate. “All of the kitties I knowloveto eat sweet potatoes.”
Rowan bared his tiny, white teeth. “They do not!”
Okay. Time to pivot.“I can offer you some apple sauce or a scrambled egg.”
“No!” Rowan’s wavy brown hair–a mirror to Tyler’s–flew out from his head as he shook it back and forth with a vehemence that signaled the approach of a meltdown. “Kitties only eat muffins!”
There weren’t any muffins.
Resigned, Tyler scooped up his son. “Let’s go get some clothes on, kitty. We’ve got an adventure to go on.”
Later that afternoon, Tyler pulled up at the curb of the address Dotty had sent and stared.
They were obviously undercharging on rent. The house was beautiful, the yard well-maintained even in winter. The Victorian was painted a dark blue with green trim on the windows, and looked like it had recently been updated.
“Papa, it looks like a castle,” Rowan said, his breath hot on Tyler’s cheek.
“It really does,” he replied.
