When he knocked on the door to Kara’s hotel room, it took her a few moments to open the door. When he did, she was on the phone. She smiled and held the door open. He closed it behind him quietly.
“Uh-huh, then what?” She waved him in, then just took his hand and led him into her hotel room. It was a lower-end hotel chain. A step above a roadside motel, but not a very large step. When she’d said she wasn’t coming, he’d cancelled the hotel reservations at the decent hotel just outside the main gate. Now he wished he hadn’t.
“Well, I’m glad you stood up for yourself. Oh, really?” Her smile grew as she sat on the corner of the queen-size bed. Other than the lone desk chair, it was the only place to sit. “I’m sure he’d love to hear that. Do you want to tell him? Yeah, he’s right here. Okay.” Eyes bright, she held out her phone. “It’s Zach. He wants to say hello.”
Everything inside him lit up. “Hey, Zach, what’s up, bud?”
“I almost got in a fight at school!”
That made him blink, then look at Kara. She smiled expectantly. “Almost?”
“Yeah, a kid was making fun of my EpiPen case, calling it a purse and sh—stuff. And I wanted to hit him.”
Oh boy. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Zach, that—”
“But I didn’t, ’cause I remembered how you were talking about not beating up on people who aren’t at your same level. Like when you took it easy on that guy during your scrimmage. And Danny’s not at my level at all. He’s an idiot.”
Graham’s lips twitched. “Really.”
“Uh-huh. But then someone else heard him and told the teacher and he got in trouble anyway for being a bully and I didn’t even have to rat him out or throw a punch. And I thought about you.”
His heart simply swelled in his chest until he thought he might pass out. Sitting beside Kara on the bed, he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in tight. He had to force the words around the lump in his throat. “I’m proud of you, kid.”
“Thanks. I’m proud of you, too.” He paused. “Is that stupid of me to say? Because I’m a kid and you’re a grown-up?”
“No,” Graham said hoarsely. “Not stupid at all.”
“Mom said you won today. So, like, good job. Did you remember to bring the good luck box?”
“I sure did. There’s no way I could have done it without the box.” He reached in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, then slid the photo he’d scanned and copied from his wallet. The young Kara, and infant Zach, stared back up at him. Kara sucked in a breath beside him. When he looked at her from the corner of his eye, she had one hand over her mouth, another on her heart.
“I wish I could have gone. School sucks sometimes.”
Clearing his throat, he bit back a moan when Kara pressed a kiss to his neck. “Yeah, sometimes. Hey, I’m going to give you back to your mom now, okay? Keep up the good work. You’re an awesome kid, Zach.”
He handed the phone back to Kara before he unmanned himself and cried. With a deep breath, he listened to Kara finish the call while he put the photo back in his wallet. She instructed him to listen to Mr. and Mrs. Cook—which explained how she’d managed to get away—and be careful. Then she hung up.
“He was so excited,” she said softly. “So excited to say he’d been like you. Like his hero.” She smiled a little, though it wobbled, and she looked at the wall across from the bed, as if she couldn’t quite look him in the eye. “His hero worship knows no bounds.”
Her voice was a little off, and he couldn’t tell if she was pleased with Zach’s hero worship, or disappointed. “I’m proud of him. He made a great choice.”
“I would love you for that alone.” Her voice trembled, and she covered her lips for a moment, still not looking at him. “For giving my boy a great man to look up to. I could love you for just that. I love Brad and Greg for that. And Mr. Cook. Good men that my son can emulate, learn from, grow into.”
Had she put him in the same category as his buddies, as an old man?
“But I don’t just love you for that.” She shifted now to look at him, one leg on the bed, one off. “I love you because you make me feel alive. Because you woke me up, and made me want to be more than just Zach’s mother again. Made me realize I could be more. And because you don’t look at me and see a broken woman who needs to be taken care of. You see something precious you want to care for. There’s a difference.”
“Kara.” He couldn’t say more. Just couldn’t.
“Let me finish, please. I won’t get it out, otherwise. I was wrong, the day before you left, to be upset with you. I wasn’t wrong to be surprised, because clearly you’d done something without telling me first. That’s not unreasonable.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Shh. But my anger was misplaced. I had to work through it first. That whole ‘being precious’ thing? It’s new to me. Having someone swoop in and try to take over, or control me . . . that’s not new. And so I reacted poorly.”