“No.”
I lifted my palm a little higher. “How about here?”
He shook his head, his dark-brown hair falling into his beautiful eyes.
I shifted my hand toward the right side of his stomach and then the left side. “Any pain in either spot?”
“Nope.”
I examined his neck and the glands in his throat, and I helped him sit up a little so I could run my hand down his back. “Are the pains sharp? Do they come and go?”
He nodded. “Ugh.”
When I turned toward Gavin, he was whispering to his mom, and she was wearing the biggest smile as he spoke. I was so curious what they were talking about, but when they looked at me, I got the feeling I was the topic of that conversation. And based on her grin, she was beyond pleased with what she was hearing.
I couldn’t wait to ask him what their talk was about.
“None of the spots on his stomach seem to be tender,” I explained. “Nothing in his neck is enlarged. He doesn’t have any pain in his back. My guess is that this could be a case of a missing hockey stick and ... having to go to the bathroom.”
Gavin came over and knelt beside me, his hand holding the back of Ben’s head. “Buddy, are you feeling ick because you have to go potty?”
Ben shrugged.
“I’ll take him.” Melinda returned to the couch, holding out her hand to Ben. Before they walked off, she set her fingers on my shoulder. “Thank you, Emily. I hope to see more of you soon.”
“Of course—and same.”
I got up from the floor, Gavin did, too, and once Ben and Melinda were out of sight, he immediately pulled me into his arms.
I rested my face on his chest, slowly filling my lungs, the events of tonight finally hitting me. Even though he’d said he wanted me to stay, that didn’t mean he wasn’t having second thoughts. I was sure his mind was a storm of emotions the same way mine was.
I clenched my eyelids closed and whispered, “I don’t know if you were ready for that. I wish it had happened on your terms and not like this—”
“The timing was perfect.” He lifted my chin until I looked at him, my eyes opening. “I was going to suggest it anyway. Ben’s stomach just beat me to it.”
He was?
Oh God.
“Are you sure?” I continued to search his eyes. “The last thing I want is for you to feel rushed and have regret and—”
“Yes, I’m sure.” He cupped my face. “I don’t feel rushed. I don’t have regrets. I want you to be in my son’s life, Emily.” He grazed my cheeks with his thumbs. “You were incredible with him.” As the gravity of that statement hit me, so did his lips, taking mine as though he needed to reinforce what he’d just said. “This feels so right.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gavin
As I gently shook Ben awake, his beautiful blue eyes opened—eyes that were the same color as his mother’s—and he rubbed them and yawned.
“Hi, Daddy.” Once he rolled onto his back, my hand covering most of his stomach, I massaged his tummy as he stretched his arms over his head, his small fists reaching as high as the headboard.
“How’s my boy? Did you sleep good?”
“I dreamed of this big dinosaur, and it was flying through the sky, and you know what happened? It landed right by us, and it picked up Fenway and the dinosaur grabbed the poor doggy and flew away with it and Fenway was crying.”
I flattened some of his hair. The rest needed water to tame it. “Did you rescue Fenway?”
“I tried to, but it got so high up and I didn’t have a dinosaur I could fly on to go get it.” His bottom lip jutted out. “Emily was so sad. I didn’t like to see her sad.”
