Page 122 of Out Of A Fix

“I do.”

“Like a friend?” he delved.

“More than a friend,” he assured his son.

Darwin’s attention turned to me. “And you?”

“You know I love you guys, and your father’s growing on me.”

Luke laughed over that.

“What? I need to be truthful.”

“Fair,” he agreed, nodding.

Strangely, the smile on Darwin’s face was making his darker eyes—they were the deepest midnight blue of everyone in his family—practically glow. He looked—and this was unusual for him—radiant.

“What’s with you?” Luke asked him.

“All that romance and lovey-dovey stuff is stupid,” he said flatly. “I don’t like it, and I don’t believe in it. You and Mom stopped loving each other. All my friends with divorced parents, they stopped loving each other too. The only thing I know for sure about love with grown-ups is that it doesn’t last.”

“That’s terrible,” I told Luke.

“Then why do you seem happy?” Luke asked him.

“Because you love Nash, but it’s different than it was with Mom. You’re friends first. That’s right, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “It is.”

“And Nash likes you, but he’s not in love with you, not yet. Maybe never. But still, you’ll be friends, and I think that’s better. I think that lasts longer,” he said to his father. “That means you’ll be happy from now on, and you need that. I like you how you are now. I don’t want you to change back. And if Nash is with you, then you won’t.”

Luke rushed forward, and Darwin met him. They collided hard, hugging tight before Luke went down on one knee so Darwin could lean into him.

“I was super worried that if Nash went, then all his rules and stuff that we do might go too,” he said into his father’s shoulder. “I don’t wanna go back to how it was.”

“No. We won’t go back,” Luke promised. “We’re a different family now.”

“But you love him, and he loves us, so he’ll love you too, don’t worry about it.”

“I will not worry,” he said, chuckling.

“The most important thing, like I said, is that he likes you and you’re friends. He won’t ever leave if you’re friends.”

“Plus, he loves you guys.”

“That’s right,” he said with a smile.

“How do you know he loves you?”

“He makes me feel important, so I know how he feels. He loves us.”

I did. He wasn’t wrong.

Darwin turned to me. “Nash?”

“Yes, buddy?”

“I think it’s good that your stuff is in Dad’s room. Don’t move it again. Just stay there.”