Page 47 of Until August

After I bought him two scoops of ice cream with three toppings, he was talking my ear off. If I’d known it was this easy to win him over, I would have skipped the tacos and gone directly to ice cream.

“You know what I want to be when I grow up?” he asked, shoveling a spoonful of ice cream and Oreos into his mouth. Without waiting for my answer, he forged on. “I want to be one of those people that goes out on boats and scuba dives. And they learn about the fishes and dolphins and… you know….” He waved his hand in the air. “All the sea creatures. And maybe I can feed them and help them if they get hurt and stuff.”

“You want to be a marine biologist?”

He nodded vigorously and ate another bite of his ice cream. “Yeah, I wanna be one of those guys.”

“That sounds like a great job.”

“Yeah. Hey. Guess what?” He tried to snap his fingers but hadn’t yet perfected the art. I stifled my laughter. “You wanna hear something really cool?” His eyes widened with excitement, and I wanted to pull him out of his seat and hug the shit out of him and never let go. He was so fucking cute with those big blue eyes and a spray of freckles on his nose. And I’d missed him so damn much.

When I was a kid, I’d never gotten hugs, kisses, or affection at all, so when Sage was born, it was one of the things I vowed to do for him. Let him know he was loved and show him through my actions.

But I was fully aware that our newly formed bond was tentative and that the ties holding us together were fragile. So I held back.

“I’d love to hear something really cool.”

“Okay. Ready?” I nodded. “Did you know that an octopus has three hearts? Three.” He held up three fingers to make his point. “And so does a squid. Cool, right?”

“Very cool.”

“Yeah.” He mixed the rest of his ice cream until it got soupy, then ate another spoonful. Ice cream dribbled down the front of his navy hoodie, and he wiped it away with his hand. “I wish I had three hearts. Then if one of them died, I’d still have two more. And if another one died, I’d have one left. The strongest one of them all. And then Mom wouldn’t have to worry about me.”

Jesus. This kid. It was all I could do not to break down and cry like a baby. He sounded so matter of fact that I knew he had no idea how deep of a chord he’d struck. I cleared my throat. “That’s not how it works.”

His brows drew together. “Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t matter if you have one heart or three, your mom will still worry about you. And you know why?” He shook his head and waited for my answer. “Because you’re her baby, and no matter how old you get, or how tall or how big and strong, she’ll always worry about you. But in a good way. In the very best way. Because she cares about you and loves you, and nothing will ever change that.”

He thought about that for a minute. “Guess not.”

We moved on to other topics. I asked about school and his friends. And then I remembered that I had to get him home by seven and checked the time. Shit. We only had fifteen minutes. “We need to get going.” I stood up from the rickety sidewalk table. “I have to get you home.”

“But I haven’t finished my ice cream yet.”

I eyed the cardboard cup on the wrought iron table. There were a few Oreo crumbs and a piece of banana floating around in a thin layer of melted ice cream. I grabbed it off the table and held it in front of him. “Finish the last bite.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “No. I’m not ready to go yet.”

Part of me was fucking over the moon that he wanted to spend more time with me. But I’d promised Sasha seven o’clock, and I’d be damned if I was going to break a rule at this early stage in the game. “Listen,” I said, trying to reason with him. He looked up at me with a scowl on his face. “If we go now, it will make your mom happy. And we’ll get to do this again real soon.”

He debated for a moment. “Promise?”

And maybe that was the real reason he didn’t want to leave. He was afraid he’d never see me again.

Trust had to be earned, so I couldn’t expect him to trust me after only two hours.

“Promise.” I would sooner die than break another promise.

He sighed and dragged his feet all the way to my truck. It took ten times as long as it usually would, but we got there in the end.

I pulled up outside Sasha’s house with minutes to spare.

Unfortunately, Travis answered the door. Sage ran right up to him and gave him a fist bump, yelling, “see you soon,” over his shoulder as he ran into the house and left me standing on the doorstep.

“How did it go?” Travis asked.

Could it get any fucking worse than having to report to him? “Fine,” I said, my tone clipped. “Sasha around?”