it on, then points it to the roof of the tent. “You love Mama. I love you.”
Everything inside me stops at his words, and I’m floating, soaring, so high, high, high. And then I come down from my high and push Mia off my lap. I crawl over to Benny and hug him harder than I’ve ever hugged him before. Behind me, Mia laughs, says something about getting in the shower. “Too tight,” Benny chokes out, and I release him, just enough to rear back and kiss his little cheeks, again and again. “I love you so much, Benny.” Dammit, why am I on the verge of tears? For someone who claims to be the strongest man in this boy’s world, I’m sure acting like a little bitch.
“I know you do,” Benny says.
“How do you know?”
He shrugs. “Because you show me you do,” he responds, and I realize now that there’s nothing at all complicated about love in the eyes of a four-year-old.
You know someone loves you because they show you they do.
It’s that simple.
I don’t go back to my sleeping bag. I sit beside my son and watch as his eyes slowly fight the fatigue until his dark lashes settle across his cheeks. I wait until his little hand gripping any number of rocks loosens its grip, and when his breaths even and his lips move with the motion of his inhales and exhales, I get out of the tent and search for Mia.
She’s standing in front of the bathroom mirror in nothing but a towel. At any other time, I’d have ripped the towel off her, lifted her onto the counter and spread her legs so I could devour her. Now though, I just watch her through the mirror, a reminder to myself of how lucky I am. She’s so fucking beautiful it almost hurts to look at her, and she gave me Benny—our son—the greatest gift in the world. “Have you stopped smiling?” she asks, her eyes on mine through the mirror.
Reaching up, I massage the muscles in my cheeks, aching from the force of my grin. “Not even for a second.” I step forward, settle my hands on her hips from behind, and watch her apply some kind of face cream. “I meant what I said, you know? That I love you?”
She turns in my arms, splotches of white dotted all over her face. I run the pad of my thumbs across each one, spreading the cream across her flesh. She stays quiet as I do this, her hands gripping my forearms. When I’m done, she leans up, presses her lips to mine. “You know that I love you, too?” Her voice wavers as she says it, and when I search her eyes—it’s like a slow torture.
I don’t know how long I spend watching them fill with tears, but with every second that passes, my insecurities grow stronger and stronger. “Is that a bad thing? That we love each other?”
My palms are still cupping her face, so they move with her head shake. “No, it’s not that.”
I drop my hands. “Did my dad say something to you today?”
Her lips thin to a line, and I take a step back, allowing myself room to breathe. I don’t want to go from Benny telling me he loves me to whatever is about to happen. “Can we not do this tonight, Mia?” I grasp at my hair, frustrated. “I just... as pathetic and childish as it is, I just don’t want to.”
“Leo,” Mia sighs, tugging on my T-shirt to bring me closer. She attempts to sit on the counter, but she’s too little and weak, so I grasp her waist and hoist her up. She offers me a shy smile—the one I’m pretty sure I fell in love with before I even knew what love was. After a quick kiss, she settles her arms on my shoulders and spreads her legs for me to step between them. It’s not a sensual move; it’s… intimate… and right. It feels so fucking right—this entire day and night. Spending time with Benny outside of the farm, having them here with me, just us. Having my son tell me he loves me and then saying the same thing to my... my Mia. For the first time, I feel like a family, and I want this. Mia once told me that when she discovered she was pregnant, she was at a point in her life where she never knew who she was or what