Page 98

Cash sighs, like he can’t believe I’m making him do this. “Ten, eleven. . .”

I stop him. “Nope. You’re counting by ones. If you’re counting by tens, next one would be twenty, right?”

Defeated, his hands drop. “I don’t get it!”

I grab his hands and hold them up. “And you won’t get it until you make an effort.”

“It’s not easy for me. You’re a teacher. It’s easy for you.”

“No, it’s not. I didn’t learn this way. I learned math a completely different way.”

“How?”

“By basically counting my fingers, and anything past ten, I was screwed until I realized a calculator told me the answers.”

His eyes light up. “Can I have a calculator?”

“Nope. Pretty sure they don’t make them anymore once cell phones came out.”

I think he’s learning not to take me seriously anymore. I wouldn’t, but he does hold up his hands and begins to count again. “Ten, twenty, thirty. . .” His blue eyes raise to mine, and I nod, so he continues. “Forty, fifty. . . .”

“Okay, stop there.” I tuck his thumb down. “So if I asked you how many was in four ten frames, what would be your answer?”

He stares at his fingers, biting down on his bottom lip. I can tell he’s nervous to give the wrong answer, but I also know he has the right answer; he’s just afraid to tell me what it is.

“Forty?” His voice is so small it’s hard to believe it’s coming from Cash, the same kid who punched a fourth grader for tackling his brother last week.

I hold my hand up, waiting for the high-five. “Dude, you got it right!”

He high-fives me. “Please tell me we’re done. My brain has cramp.”

Aly comes in and gives a tip of her head to the kitchen. “I made pie for dessert.” Her tender eyes land on her son, who has barely eaten anything this week. “You feeling well enough to have some?”

He nods and follows her into the kitchen where she’s set out a pie, and four plates at the booth tucked away in the corner of the kitchen. “Would you like some pie?”

“Is it pussy pie?” I whisper in her ear, growling and squeezing her ass discretely.

She laughs and wiggles away from me.

Grady appears again, hair wet and in his pajamas, his eyes gleaming at the pie.

So we all sit down and eat pie.

All’s good, right?

Not a fucking chance.

“I love my mom’s pussy,” Grady says conversationally, taking a bite of the cherry-filled pie.

Fuck. I knew that would come back to haunt me. No good deed goes unpunished.

Aly’s eyes dart to mine, and I grin, slowly pulling the twines of the fork through my lips. “Me too.”

Aly chokes on the bite in her mouth, her cheeks a bright shade of what-the-fuck Ridge.

I shrug. “He likes pie.”

“Cherry,” Grady corrects, taking another bite. “Only cherry pussy.”

I can’t keep a straight face any longer—as if I couldn’t before—it’s a mute effort now. There’s just something funny to me about the word pussy coming from the mouth of an eight-year-old. Can you blame me?

Leaning in, about the time Aly looks like she’s going to choke on her pussy pie, I whisper, “I’ll set ‘em straight when they’re older.”

Take a look at her face the moment the words leave my lips. She’s hoping I do, mostly because that was my first indication I plan to be around when they’re older.

And I do.