Matty shook his head. “He doesn’t like broccoli and I don’t like peas.” Before I could even try to decode the odd statement, Matty said, “He’ll eat my peas and I’ll eat his broccoli.”
“Ah, I see,” I said. “What else?”
“We both think our daddies kiss too much so we’re not gonna.”
I chuckled. “Those sound like really good reasons to get married,” I responded. “But maybe wait a few years just to be sure.”
“Pop-pop, are you gonna get married?”
“Maybe,” I hedged. No reason to tell him there was no chance in hell that would ever happen. I’d been there and I’d definitely done that.
Never again.
“You could marry Dante.”
I stilled at that, unsure of what to say. “Why do you think me and Dante should get married?” I asked. I wasn’t particularly keen on explaining to Matty the facts of life, including that unlike most of the men in his life, his grandfather wasn’t interested in members of his own sex.
A flash of heat went through me when I remembered the sightof Dante’s hand resting on the head of the guy who’d been blowing him.
Fuck.
“Because Dante is alone and you’re alone,” Matty stated as he toyed with his doll. “If you get married, you won’t be alone anymore. Like Papa and Daddy were alone before they met.”
“Your daddy had you,” I reminded him, more to get him off the topic of me and the dark-eyed man who even now was burrowed a little too far under my skin for my liking.
“But he was still sad all the time,” Matty said softly and then he was sitting up. He dropped his doll into his lap and then put his tiny hands on my cheeks. “Like you, Pop-pop.”
I felt my chest tighten. My grandson was just too damn perceptive.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, now very eager to end the discussion.
Matty held onto me for a moment and then he was wrapping his arms around my neck. “I’m going to miss you, Pop-pop,” he whispered.
I held his body against mine and swallowed down the emotion that suddenly was making it hard to talk. “I’m gonna miss you too, buddy.”
“You’re gonna come back, right?”
I nodded against him. Early on when I’d first met Hawke and Tate and had been reunited with the little boy I’d thought had been lost to me forever, I hadn’t been certain that I’d want to give up my life in Texas, but it had taken just a few days in Matty’s presence to know that my life was with him, no matter what I was giving up to make that happen.
“I’m coming back,” I assured him and then I was getting him settled back under the covers. I grabbed one of the books before Matty could start spouting off the benefits of a relationship between me and his very irritating bodyguard and flipped it open.
“Pop-pop,” Matty whispered.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Will you tell me about my Mama?”
I sucked in a breath at that because it was the first time Mattyhad even mentioned his mother. Pain radiated out through all my limbs and for a second I actually wondered if I was having a heart attack. I managed to compose myself and wiped at the tears I could feel gathering at the corners of my eyes.
“When I come back, I’ll tell you all about her. Deal?” I asked.
Matty nodded. He was quiet for a moment before saying, “Did she love me, Pop-pop?”
“She did, buddy,” I said.
“As much as you do?”
I bit into my lip hard and nodded. “Yep, just as much as I do.”
