“Aunt Maggie is right, Wy. You kind of look like you’re in a dress.”
His face pinkens, and his bright blue eyes go wide. “A dress?”
I jolt, smacking my shoulder into Lindy’s.
“Notexactlya dress,” she says.
“No.” I crouch next to him. “Obviously, you’re wearing a real player’s soccer jersey.”
“Obviously,” he says.
“But soccer players usually wear pants.” I shrug as if the choice is his, but those are the facts.
He nods. “That’s true. I’ll go get some.” He hurries from the kitchen, his little feet pattering down the hall. There’s a soft clatter, a grunt, and then— “I’m okay!” he yells before his bedroom door slams shut.
“You can’t say ‘dress’ to him.” I pinch Lindy’s side, but she doesn’t even jump. “He’s a little sensitive about that kind of thing. Ever since Trinity Booker told him his hair was longer than his sisters.”
Lindy huffs. “Well, it got Wyatt to agree to a haircut after bugging him for a month.”
She isn’t wrong. Still, I want Wyatt to be himself, whoever that little wonderful person is. I hate that at six, he’s already influenced by what other people might think.
“It’s fine,” she says, clearly not worried.
She is his mother. Maybe I shouldn’t worry either… yeah right, that’s not happening.
“We both wanted him to put pants on,” she says. “Now it isn’t a fight.”
I sigh. “I guess.”
“Aunt Maggie!” Wyatt bellows. He races back into the room, holding his shirt up like a woman in a ball gown trying to keep her skirts from touching the ground. “Help me tuck it in!”
“Sure.” I brush my hand over his head.
The doorbell rings, but I’m already kneeling in front of Wyatt, ready to tuck an ocean of jersey material into his child-sized jeans.
“I’ll get it,” Lindy says.
“It’ll be Lucca,” I say, anxious over my family and their all-encompassing Lucca love. “Maybe I should?—”
“Hurry! Tuck!” Wyatt flaps his arms. “Lucca can’t see me unzipped.”
“Fine. Lindy, get the door. I’ll tuck.” And that’s what I do. I’m sweating by the time I tuck all that man shirt into those little boy jeans. Wyatt’s pants are bulging and puffing out as if we stuffed a teddy bear with too much cotton, but that shirt is tucked in, only half of the three in sight. Thankfully, we get Wyatt zipped before Lucca and Lindy make their way into the kitchen.
His dark hair sweeps back, blending into his dark beard. His broad shoulders might take up two of Lindy’s frame. The man is tall and strong and utterly scrumptious.
“Ta-da!” Wyatt cries again, this time facing Lucca and throwing out his arms. One little hand smacks me right in the face.
Wyatt doesn’t notice, and there’s no sense in making him feel bad. I squint, my right eye stinging with pain, and stand.
I clear my throat. “Yes. Ta-da.”
“Oh, ow—hey,” Lucca says, brow furrowed, silently asking if I’m okay. I nod as if to say,Please move on.Somehow that big giant hunk of a man reads my mind. “Wyatt! It fits.”
“Yeah!” Wyatt thrusts out his hips. “Zipped and all.”
Thirty-Nine
“And this one,”Dad says, pulling out a jock strap I’ve never seen before, “was from a San Francisco 49er. I’m not sure which one, but the seller on Finder’s Bid guaranteed me that a 49er from the ’80s wore this strap.”
