Page 166 of My Real Love Affair

“Hey, buddy.” I awkwardly patted his head.

“Up! Up!” He raised his arms, making grabby hands.

“Uh, I think, I mean, don’t you want to work on your walking skills?”

“Dude, trust me, he doesn’t need any more practice. He’s going to be a track star.”

“Up! Up! Up!”

“Okay, okay.” I bent down and picked him up. He immediately grabbed my face with sticky hands.

“Cookie?”

“No cookies, kid. Sorry.”

His face fell, and I felt an irrational pang of guilt. Over disappointing a toddler. What was happening to me?

“Conrad, let Uncle Austin breathe,” Mina called from the kitchen. She appeared in the doorway, flour on her hands and a smile on her face. “Hi, Austin. Ignore him. He’s been in a clingy phase all week.”

“It’s fine.” And surprisingly, it was. The kid was heavy and smelled vaguely like applesauce, but there was something weirdly comforting about the way he latched onto me.

“Come on,” Isaac said. “We’ll get the kid a cookie. It’ll keep him occupied for about three minutes.”

Conrad refused to leave my side for the next thirty minutes. Kent and Sylvie showed up at one point but Conrad didn’t seem to care. He had adopted me. I had chocolate smeared on my face, shirt, and pants from the cookie situation. Isaac could have fucking warned me I needed a hazmat suit to have dinner at his place.

When I tried to help Isaac set the table, Conrad followed, grabbing onto my pant leg. When I went to the kitchen for a drink, he was right behind me, chattering about trucks and dogs and something I couldn’t quite understand but involved a lot of hand gestures.

I tried to give him the slip in the kitchen while he was distracted by a ball Mina had set on the floor for him to play with.

“Careful,” Mina said, appearing beside me with a knowing smile. “They can smell fear.”

Despite my mood, I laughed. “That obvious?”

“You have the look of a man being hunted by a very small, very determined predator.” She bumped my shoulder with hers. “He likes you. That’s a good thing.”

“Why does he like me? I’m terrible with kids.”

“Are you? Because from where I’m standing, you’ve been pretty patient with him. And you haven’t tried to bribe him with screentime to leave you alone, which is more than I can say for some uncles.” She gave me a look that was both kind and knowing.

“I didn’t know that was an option,” I said. “I offered to write him a check but he wasn’t interested. That’s my usual go-to.”

She laughed. “Try again in ten years.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You okay? You seem off tonight.”

“I’m fine.”

“So why do you look like someone kicked your dog?”

I opened my mouth to deflect, but then Dad and Cash walked through the front door, and any chance of a genuine conversation evaporated.Shit.

“Austin.” My father’s greeting was polite but cool. “Good to see you.”

“Dad.”

Cash nodded at me. His expression was the usual dark and cold. And I knew with that one look that before the night was over, he’d corner me and want to “talk.”