back tears. He hated watching his boy walk away. Either one of them.
Usually it was a little easier to see Dallas go, because a quick hug was all he wanted before he was moving on to the next thing. Typically, Reid was just praying he’d be able to stay seated in his seat and not try to jump out of the plane before it landed.
He hoped his kid was smart enough to at least know he needed a parachute, but sometimes Dallas was just like him, and his brain didn’t always make sense.
Reid could relate.
But for some reason today, Dallas seemed to be clinging. Unusual. Maybe it was the preteen hormones.
Reid didn’t really remember feeling any effects like this in him at that time. And Dallas seemed to be a clone. Still. They were bound to be different in some areas.
Of course, maybe it was because he’d gotten to spend three days with his brother. That had always been a problem.
The special boarding pass he had for children allowed him to come back with his son, and because Houston was only ten, he was allowed to come along. Dallas let go of Reid and immediately grabbed his brother in a bear hug. That pierced Reid’s soul.
Dallas seemed really torn up about leaving, which was, again, very uncharacteristic. In fact, was that a tear?
“I’m so glad we got to spend time together. I’ll never forget you. Write to me. Maybe we can FaceTime. Maybe Mom will let us Skype. We can at least text or email.” Dallas went on and on, and yes, Reid was pretty sure that was liquid running down his cheek.
It was to the point that Houston was actually trying to push him away. As Reid watched, Houston seemed to shake his head a little, grabbing Dallas by the shoulders and trying to catch his eye.
Reid hadn’t had a twin, but it seemed there was some kind of message passing between them.
Whatever it was, he was grateful, because Houston seemed to calm Dallas down some. Dallas wiped the side of his face and jerked his head down.
“Well, I am.”
“I’m going to miss you too. I’m sure Mom can be talked into something. Maybe we can even talk them into letting us talk on the phone.” Houston’s eyes slanted over to Reid who had a brow raised. That was weird.
It was like they were talking about him. “Guys, I’m standing right here.”
“Oh? We weren’t sure if you were listening,” Dallas said.
Reid wasn’t used to dealing with them both at once, but he had a feeling something fishy was going on. Their voices sounded like they were reading from a script.
It probably had something to do with some game they’d been playing in the last three days. Maybe Emerson and he had made a bad choice when they’d decided to split them up. It seemed the fairest way to do things, each of them getting a boy for six months of the year.
Maybe the boys were being deprived.
He and Emerson didn’t talk much, their emails were short, but maybe this was something he needed to bring up with her.
He didn’t look forward to that. The more time he spent talking to her, the more he remembered how much he liked her. It was better to just not. Focus on his own problems, like how he was going to save the farm.
More likely on what he was going to do when the bank took his farm.
“I’ll talk to your mother about it.”
“You’ll call her?” Houston said, with wide eyes.
“No,” he said, like that wasn’t even something he would consider, because it wasn’t. No way. He wasn’t calling her. He’d managed to not talk to her at all since the boys had left. Email had been sufficient.
Even when the boys were little, they’d hired someone to fly with them up until they could do it on their own.
“I’ll email her about it.”
“Oh.” Houston’s head went down, but his eyes hooked on Dallas’s, and they shared another one of those looks.
Whatever they meant, Reid wasn’t going to worry about it.
“Well, buddy, you better get on the plane, they’re about to call the first group.”
Dallas nodded, and Reid walked with him up to the ticket agent, who scanned Dallas’s phone before waiting for someone to come and escort Dallas onto the plane.
Reid watched until his son was out of sight, that empty, hollow feeling in his chest expanding like he’d swallowed a balloon. Yeah, this was the worst part about sharing the kids.
Watching him