I held on to him as long as he would let me. When he was done, he dropped his arms and stood back. “I’m gonna go back to my room and play.”
I stood up and pressed a kiss to his head. “I’m gonna fix us some supper,” I told him.
“Mac ’n’ cheese!” he called out as he ran for his room.
“No. You’re gonna turn into mac ’n’ cheese,” I called back to him, laughing, before heading to the kitchen. Tonight we were eating bread pizzas. It was something I had come up with to make a cheap meal interesting. Slices of sandwich bread with tomato paste, cheese, pepperoni, and mushrooms didn’t cost much and made several meals.
“You’re gonna make bread pizzas, aren’t you?” he said as he stuck his head back out of his room and looked down the hall toward the kitchen.
“Yep. You gonna help me?”
“Yup!” he called back. “You don’t put enough cheese,” he explained as he came running back toward me.
DEWAYNE
“What’s the verdict? You think the kid who answered the door is gonna be the new neighborhood drug lord?” Dad asked as he followed me into the house.
I shot him an annoyed glare and he chuckled. He didn’t realize that shit actually went on in some places. It was my job to keep them safe, even if he didn’t accept that.
“Looked right terrifying. ’Specially when he peeked around your legs at me.”
The kid had been cool. Dad would love him. . . . But . . . I wasn’t sure I was gonna tell him just who that kid belonged to. Sienna wasn’t the same girl they’d known. She was cold, distant, and hiding something. I knew enough about people to know when someone wanted to get rid of me because they didn’t want me to see too closely.
The boy had to be what had made her clam up. She didn’t want us to know she’d turned around and gotten knocked up, probably no more than a year after Dustin was killed. Can’t say I blame her, because it didn’t look real good. Maybe she really had snapped, and because she was mentally unstable, she’d made a mistake and ended up with Micah.
She sure didn’t look mentally unstable now. Fuck. Who was I kidding? The woman could be crazy as a loon and I wouldn’t have noticed. Her body and that gorgeous face of hers had hindered my seeing the real her. She was the kind of good-looking that made guys not give a shit if she was insane.
But the boy had been normal. Happy, even. Didn’t look scared or neglected. A crazy momma couldn’t raise such a normal-acting kid. Could she? Was he even hers? Could that be her secret, that she was raising someone else’s kid?
“That brain of yours sure is a-workin’. The tiny tike drug lord worrying you?”
I shook my head and rolled my eyes at my dad.
“Is that Dewayne I hear? Did my boy finally come see me?” Momma’s voice called out from the kitchen. The guilt swamped me as she came around the corner, smiling like I had just lit up her world, and opened her arms to me. I was the only kid she had now. Not the one who was going to be a star and make them proud. I was the tatted-up rebel who had planned on raising hell and traveling the world with nothing but a backpack. No reason to stay anywhere long.
But then the good son, the one who had been meant for greatness, got drunk and ran his car into a f**king tree going over a hundred miles an hour. Now she had me. I was it. And I was still a f**kup even though I tried like hell to do the right thing. Make her proud.
“Sorry, Momma. I should’ve slowed down long enough to get over here. Won’t happen again,” I told her as I returned her hug. The top of her head didn’t even touch my chin.
“Good. I missed you,” she said, stepping back and then swatting me with the dish towel in her hand. “I’m about to pull the apple pie out of the oven and run it over to the new neighbors. Then we can sit down and eat.”
Fuck. I hadn’t thought about Momma and her apple pies. Of course she’d want to take one to Sienna. I needed to prevent that. Bad idea. Momma was still too raw from the anniversary of Dustin’s death. She didn’t need to see her new neighbors just yet.
“Yeah, not gonna happen tonight. I just went over there and met them. They were headed out to dinner and to get some groceries. Didn’t seem much to want company. Really odd woman.”
Momma frowned and then shrugged. “Then y’all can eat my pie and I’ll make another tomorrow and see if I can’t get it over there to them. Shouldn’t be calling the poor woman odd, though.”
She turned and walked back toward the kitchen, and I followed behind her. I knew there would be beer in the fridge, and I needed one.
“All I saw was legs, but from the look of them, wasn’t nothing about them legs odd,” Dad said behind me.
The old man loved to cause problems. He found that shit funny. “Legs were okay, I guess, but the rest of her was average. Nothing special,” I lied.
I so f**king lied.
Chapter Three
Eight years ago . . .