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He sniffs again. “I’m sorry I took the stuff. I don’t know why I did that. My brain just told me that I should take it, so I did. I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” I say. “How ’bout we go together to take the stuff back to Ms. Willard tomorrow morning?”

Jason looks resigned but nods his head. His eyes fill with tears again as he looks at the floor. “I’m sorry I tore the posters. I don’t think they’re stupid. I shouldn’t have done that. I really loved those posters.”

Wrapping my arm around his shoulders, I nestle him into my side. “It will be okay. We can find some different decorations. Or maybe Sammi and Mr. Griffin could get us a new poster. I’ll ask him, okay?”

“Okay,” Jason’s voice is small. “And Miss Danae? I really am glad you’re my mom now. I lied when I said you’re not my mom. I want you to be my mom.”

I squeeze him one more time. “Well, good. Because I want to be your mom.”

Chapter twenty-five

Griffin

“Bro . . . I need you . . . to sign a poster . . . after we’re done,” I huff between breaths as Adrian and I run on curve treadmills next to each other. We’ve completed our strength training for the day and are finishing off the session with cardio conditioning.

“No prob, old man,” Adrian replies before increasing his speed with an impish grin. “All that time with your lady getting in the way of your conditioning?” He sounds hardly winded as he asks, but I know he’s making an intentional effort to hide his own breathlessness.

The closer we get to spring training, the harder our trainers push us.

“Remind me to . . . slap you when time is called,” I huff again.

“When do we . . . get to meet her?” Drew asks from my other side. “Lily keeps pestering . . . me about it.”

“Time! Next rotation!” one of the trainers yells, and I take deep breaths as the treadmill slows to a stop. The three of us move to rowing machines, which should make conversation slightly easier. Despite Adrian’s show-off nature, he’s breathing just as heavily as I am as we sit down on machines and wait for the start signal.

“We’re having dinner tonight with Danae’s best friend and her husband,” I tell Drew. “So I think Danae will be open to meeting some of my friends if tonight goes well. Even the friends I’m stuck with,” I add, giving Adrian a hearty shove right before the trainer yells to begin.

“I’ve already met Danae,” Adrian gloats as we begin rowing. “We should do a group thing—my familiar presence would definitely put her at ease.”

He’s half-joking but likely not wrong. Maybe getting all my teammates together to meet Danae at one time would be less overwhelming in the long run than multiple instances spread out.

“We could do a team dinner at our house sometime,” Drew offers. “You know Lily would love to plan that.”

“I’ll talk with Danae about it tonight,” I respond through the back-and-forth motion of the rowing machine. “It might overwhelm her to meet everyone at once—”

“Because we can be a lot?” Adrian playfully interjects.

“Pretty much,” I say. “But that’s probably the easiest way to introduce her to everyone before we leave for camp.”

Drew exhales sharply as he pulls the rower cables back. “Sounds good. I’ll tell Lily to start planning.”

“Hey, I need you to sign a poster before we leave today too,” I say, glancing over at Drew. “There was a mishap with Jason’s posters from camp, and I want to replace them.”

“Sure thing,” Drew says. “Mishap?”

I’m silent for a couple of rowing cycles. “The kid’s been through a lot. Sometimes the trauma responses are too much for him to hold in,” I say.

“I know I don’t understand trauma all that well,” Drew replies, “but you know we’ve got your back as you’ve got Danae’s, okay, man? Anything you need from us, you let us know.”

“You know I love giving you a hard time, but, yes, what Sheffield said,” Adrian pipes in. “Fireball is such a cute kid. Let me know anything I can do to help.”

“Thanks, guys,” I say, masking the swell of emotion in my chest with an extra-deep inhale and exhale.

“That’s time! Next rotation!”

When I arrive at Danae’s townhouse, I glance around the parking lot before jogging up to knock on the door. Danae opens it with a wide smile, and Jason quickly comes sprinting into view.