Page 45 of Until Nalia

“It’ll be okay.”

His chin wobbles. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” I dip my chin to his ice cream. “Eat. When you’re done, we’ll head to the shop, and you can hang in the office and do your homework until it’s time to go home.”

“Okay,” he mumbles, dropping his eyes back to his ice cream. When I see a tear slide down his cheek before he can catch it, I push my chair back from the table.

“Come here,” I order softly, and he gets up from his seat and walks over to me slowly. Even though he’s not small anymore, I pull him down onto my lap and hold him like I would when he was little, when things were simple, and the ugly realities about life hadn’t touched him yet. And I know it’s the right move when he buries his face against my chest and holds onto me tight.

“I love you, bud,” I whisper against the top of his head.

“I know,” he whispers back, his hold getting tighter.

Thirteen

LOGAN

Leaning back against the counter in the kitchen, I pull up Nalia’s number on my cell. Between work, dealing with Kristy, who I called to talk to about Coop, dinner, and Kristy showing up to talk to our son, I haven’t had a minute to check in with Nalia since texting her this afternoon to let her know what happened. Or the watered-down version of what happened, since there wasn’t enough time to get into the details.

“I was just thinking about you.” She answers on the first ring, and if my head was in a better place, I might ask her what she was thinking about, but honestly, I can’t pull up the energy right now. “Is Cooper okay?”

“He’s already asleep.” I drag my fingers through my hair.

“Zuri told me a little more about what happened. She said that Matthew came back to class and was happy to tell everyone that Coop got suspended for hitting him.”

“This doesn’t shock me.”

“Yeah,” she agrees softly, and the phone goes quiet for a long moment before she whispers. “If you were here, I’d offer you a drink. I’m sure you need one after today.”

“You got beer?”

“No, but I have a bottle of bourbon that was given to me by a client a week ago. It’s supposed to be good, and they have a huge following around here.”

I glance at the clock on the microwave, it’s a little after eight thirty, not exactly early, but it’s also not late. “Is Zuri up?”

“No, she’s in bed.”

“Let me go up and tell Billie to watch out for her brother, and I’ll be over.”

“Really? It’s after eight.” I smile. Only she would sound shocked that I’d take her up on her offer.

“Are you going to bed?” I ask, and she hesitates for a second before she murmurs.

“No.”

“Alright, then I’ll be over.”

“Okay, send me a text when you get here so that you don’t have to ring the bell.”

“Will do, baby.” I hang up with her then head to the stairs dodging the shit that I put on the steps for the kids to take upstairs. Shit they ignored taking up to their rooms and stepped over when they went up after their mom left.

“Yeah,” Billie calls out after I knock on her door. I push her door and find her lying in bed with a book she was reading open and resting on her chest with music playing softly in the background. Her room is not your typical girl’s room; there isn’t a drop of pink anywhere to be found, but somehow, it’s still girly. She asked that her walls be painted black when we were picking out paint colors, and even though I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea and honestly a little worried about the darkness of the color, I knew she had a vision, so I let her do her thing. I’m glad I did. With pops of color added from the gold-framed Broadway show posters she has hanging on the walls, stark white curtains, fluffy bedding, and a makeup station with a huge mirror that has those screw in lightbulbs, it screams old Hollywood.

“You gonna be up for a while?”

“Yeah, I have a lot of reading to do, then I need to study my lines for the show.”

“You mind keeping an ear out for your brother for an hour or so?”