Page 9 of Goodbye, Earl (Ladies’ Revenge Club #4)

Oliver looked at his grandmother once more and she nodded with an encouraging smile. “That’s right, Ollie,” she said softly, “that’s your papa.”

“Oh,” said the boy, soft and uncertain, looking back at Freddy once more with a blinking scrutiny. Those blinks increased speed, realization spreading over the boy’s little face. “Oh!”

And then he launched himself right out of Patricia Hightower’s lap and into Freddy’s arms, squeezing as tight as his little body could manage, his little voice going high as he announced, “It is you! It really is you! My papa!”

“Oh, gracious,” said Patricia as Freddy caught the boy, pulling him close and cradling the back of his little golden head. “Oh, my loves.”

Freddy himself could not stop the tears then, just a couple, hot and fat, that escaped down the corners of his eyes and landed in Oliver’s hair.

He pressed his cheek into the boy’s head and inhaled him deeply, the smell of grass and sweet soap and linen.

He breathed in as much as he could, unsure if his heart was racing or still anymore, unsure of anything other than that this boy was his.

His.

They belonged to each other.

Freddy wasn’t sure he would feel that. He hadn’t known for sure he would feel anything other than shame and awkwardness. He hadn’t been prepared for this. He hadn’t even allowed himself to hope in any specifics.

He realized he had anticipated rejection. He had expected a repeat of what had happened with Claire, the boy shouting “No!” and fleeing him.

Not this.

When the boy pulled back, luminous and smiling as wide as he could manage, Freddy quickly pressed the tears from his cheeks and returned the grin.

“Oliver,” he said, taking a chance and pressing a kiss into the boy’s forehead, “I am very, very pleased to be here with you, at long last.”

“Me too, Papa,” said Oliver, reaching to hold Freddy’s hand. “We are going to have breakfast.”

“Yes, we are,” Freddy agreed, glancing up as a steaming platter of meats was set on the table. “It smells delicious, doesn’t it? What is your favorite breakfast?”

“Pastries,” the little boy said, tilting his head up as Freddy returned to standing, their hands still linked. “Very sweet ones. Cherries!”

“Oh, just like your grandmama,” Freddy said with a laugh, glancing up at his mother, who was teary but smiling. She shrugged as though she’d been caught passing on her sweet tooth. “I like cherries too, especially in a sauce. Did you know you can have cherry sauce on meat?”

“You can? ” Oliver marveled.

They took their seats and waited for their plates to be filled. Oliver stood twice, trying to drag his chair closer to Freddy’s, staring up at him with the kind of reverence that Freddy knew he did not quite deserve.

To make things even, he got up too, scooting the chairs the rest of the way together, until the legs were touching.

Patricia did not comment, though she wore a little smile throughout.

“So,” Freddy said, looking down at his boy, “what story were you reading this morning?”

Oliver pulled a face. “It was about robbers.”

“Highwaymen,” Patricia corrected with an arch of her tawny brow. “Noble ones.”

“Noble highwaymen?” Freddy repeated with a knowing look at his mother. “What exactly were you reading to him?”

“A story,” she returned, coloring. “I … only the innocent parts.”

“About robbing,” Oliver clarified helpfully.

“I hear you have favorite stories of your own,” Freddy said, dropping a hand on the boy’s head, which was warm from the beams of sunlight. “The Witch and the Stone King? That is one of my favorites too.”

“It is?” Oliver marveled, as though he’d just been honored beyond measure. “Have you ever seen the Stone King? I have! I don’t remember going, though. I was still little.”

“Oh, you were little,” Freddy said with a solemn nod. “A very long time ago, then.”

Oliver nodded, reaching forward to spear a bit of breakfast sausage on his fork. “Very long,” he agreed.

“I went when I was little too,” Freddy said thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t mind going again, in fact. Perhaps we can go together sometime, if the idea pleases you. I should like to see the stone army again.”

“Now, that is a thought,” said Patricia, tapping at the rim of her teacup with a fingernail. “We have all these guests to entertain, and it is not a long trip. Perhaps a group outing?”

“Do they all know the story?” Oliver asked with obvious skepticism. “Do they know?”

“They probably don’t, in fact,” Freddy said, raising his brows. “So we’ll have to tell them. Do you know it by heart?”

Oliver nodded so emphatically, his little body almost tipped forward off the chair. “Yes!”

“Well, then we’ll have a rapt group!” Freddy said with a wide smile. “Maybe you can practice with me first, if you want to get it just right.”

“Practice telling the story?” Oliver asked hopefully.

Freddy chuckled. “Of course. We’ll get all the details right. Maybe I know a few things about it that you haven’t heard yet.”

“All right, Papa,” Oliver decided, dropping the grape in his hand to reach out to touch Freddy’s, wrapping his small fingers around two of Freddy’s larger ones. “Yes, let’s practice.”

He called you Papa , a little voice whispered to Freddy, poking at the space behind his eyeballs, drawing up the familiar sting that happened when one refused to release his tears. Papa.

Oliver drew in a deep, serious breath and pressed his lips together like he was preparing before he launched into his version of the story.

It was a sequence of movements that hit Freddy hard in the throat, echoing his memories of Claire on the Continent, how she’d do the same, shaking her hair and rolling her shoulders before she began to tell him something rehearsed.

It made him smile. It made him ache.

Freddy spent the remainder of the morning like that, over breakfast and stories, repeatedly reminding himself not to cry.