Where I Belong

He smiles again, more cunning this time. “I don’t have much to tell. But a f*cking blind person would’ve seen the way you two acted around each other yesterday. I could’ve burned the place down and I doubt either one of you would’ve noticed. You flustered her so bad she could barely speak, and she definitely wasn’t paying attention to a damn thing I was saying once you stepped in the shop. I could’ve asked her to carry my children and she probably would’ve agreed without knowing it.” He shakes his hair out of his eyes and registers my annoyed expression. “Not that I would’ve asked her that. I’m sure you’ve claimed that uterus.”

I wave him off dismissively, holding the neck of my beer bottle with my free hand. “I’m glad I make it difficult for her to form a sentence, but I don’t need to convince her body that we should be together. I’ve proved that point already.” He grabs another beer, offering me one but I decline it. “I just need her to see me as the guy I am now and not the shithead I used to be. And being friends and showing her that I’m not just in this for p-ssy seems like the best option for me.”

“Unless she keeps your ass permanently in the friend zone. This whole plan could blow up in your face if you aren’t careful.” He walks around the counter and sits down on the couch, turning on the TV.

I haven’t thought about the possibility of that happening. But I highly doubt Mia can ignore the chemistry we have and only see me as a friend. The spark between us is f*cking palpable. The air seems to crackle when we’re in the same room. There is an energy to it, a dynamic that you can practically see rippling between us. Drawing us together like charged particles. There’s no denying it. And once she only sees me as the man I am now and not the boy I used to be, I’ll make it my life’s purpose to never again let her feel the type of pain I once caused her.

“Hey, man, I’m gonna head out and go see my kid. Thanks for the beer.” Reed acknowledges me with a nod before I walk out of his house. I feel better now that I know for sure that he isn’t trying to get with Mia. And I don’t have a problem with him being friends with her. He’s a decent guy. He’s always been good to my sister. But if he ever steps out of line with my girl, I won’t hesitate to put him back in it.

**

I park out front at Angie’s apartment complex and take the stairs quickly to her floor. I want to tell Nolan that he’ll be spending time with Mia on Saturday night. I know he’ll look forward to it as much as I am once I break the news to him. I knock on the door, hearing his gruff voice singing aloud somewhere in the apartment. The door opens and Angie stands there looking less than pleased to see me.

“Great. Now I’ll never get him to go to sleep.” She steps aside and motions for me to walk in. “He’s been fighting me for the past hour and my nerves are shot.” I can hear Nolan’s voice coming from down the hallway where the bedrooms are. He sounds very animated, but that’s pretty standard for him.

“I’ll put him to bed. I want to talk to him anyway.”

She closes the front door and moves past me toward the couch. “Don’t keep him up with another story. I’ve already read to him four times and if he doesn’t get to bed soon, he’ll be cranky as hell in the morning.” She begins flipping through a magazine, seemingly done with lecturing me which is a good thing because I’m f*cking done listening to it. If anyone needs parenting advice between the two of us, it sure as hell isn’t me.

I walk down the hallway and stop at Nolan’s door, leaning against the doorframe. He is trying to balance his stuffed dragon on the end of his bed, holding his sword in his free hand. I watch with a smile as he gets his favorite sleeping buddy to stand up on the wooden footboard before he strikes it down with a mighty swing.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in bed, buddy?” His eyes light up and he scrambles off the bed, running toward me. I scoop him up and plant kisses all over his face.

“Daddy! You’wre hewre!”

“Shhh,” I say against his hair, carrying him over to the bed. He crawls under the covers and I lie on my side next to him, tucking him in. “Mommy said you were supposed to go to bed a while ago.”

He tugs at the buttons on my uniform. “I’m not tiewerd,” his voice breaks into a yawn and I try to hide my laugh. “Can you wead me a storwy?” He looks completely exhausted and I know I’ll never get more than a few pages into it before he passes out. He continues playing with the buttons on my shirt, his sleepy eyes falling closed every couple seconds.

“Not tonight.” I lean off the bed and grab his stuffed dragon, handing it to him. He pulls it tightly against him, popping one ear of the dragon into his mouth like he always does. He falls asleep that way every night and always wakes up if the dragon falls off the bed in the middle of the night and he no longer has it in his grasp. I run my finger down his nose and he focuses on my face, repeating the gesture.

“Guess who’s going to hang out with us on Saturday night?”

His mouth unlatches from the ear. “Who?”

I smile. “Princess Mia.”

His dimpled grin lights his whole face up and he immediately gets to his knees. “Pwincess Mia! Yayyayayayayay!” He bounces on the bed and I hush him again, tucking him back in. “I wike Pwincess Mia, Daddy,” he says in a softer voice before tucking the dragon’s ear back into his mouth.

I bend down and kiss him on his forehead. “Me too, buddy.” He closes his eyes and begins humming against his dragon. I settle down on my side, watching his body relax completely and hearing the low sound he is making get softer and softer. When I know he is asleep, I sneak out of his room, leaving the door cracked open. Angie is still on the couch looking at her magazine but throws it onto the coffee table when I enter the room.

“You know, stopping over here during the week and putting him to bed only confuses him.”

I’m walking toward the front door but stop and turn after her statement. “What the hell are you talking about?”

She stands, hitting me with her most irritated expression. I brace myself for whatever bullshit argument she is about to start. It would be nice to go one time seeing Angie and not have it out with her, but she seems determined to bitch me out about something every chance she gets.

“He’s going to start expecting it. He already wants us to be a family and when you come over here and put him to bed it’s just going to make him think that we are one.” She steps closer to me, dropping her gaze to her feet. I know this tactic. She does it when she wants me to feel bad about something. It never works and I’m surprised she keeps using it. She looks up at me with only her eyes, keeping her head down. “He’ll probably wake up and wonder if you’re still here and then when you’re not, it’ll just upset him.”

“You’re wasting your time trying to make me feel guilty. If I wanna come over here and say goodnight to my son on nights that technically aren’t mine, I’ll do it. He knows that the three of us aren’t a family. He has me and he has you but he’ll never have us together.”

Her head snaps up, the wounded fa?ade disappearing. “God, you’re such an a*shole. What the f*ck was I thinking hooking up with you in the first place?”