Всё еще впереди

Некоторые вещи невозможно рассказать словами.

Louie’s little shoulders shrugged up against my leg as he pulled me along the lawn… the lawn that needed to have gotten mowed weeks ago. I had to quit putting it off. “But that’s good she’s old,” he explained his reasoning. “She’s lasted longer than all her other friends. She said her Georgie died. She won.”

Josh could handle himself, but he was still my little guy at the end of the day, regardless of whether he was only inches away from being as tall as me. And as my little guy—as my guy, my Josh—there wasn’t an ass I wouldn’t whoop if I had to. For my kids, I would do anything.

“What are you making?”

“Tacos.”

“Gross.”

I stopped walking. “What did you just say?”

He grinned. “I’m playing.”

“I thought I was about to have to drop you off on the side of the road and make you find your own way home, kiddo.”

Two minutes later, I was inside the house after banging on the front door for a solid minute and then having Josh ask, “What’s the password?”

To which I responded, “If you don’t open the door, I’m going to kick your butt.”

“J, you’re basically a grown man—” I started to tell him.

“I’m ten.”

“In some countries in the world, you could be married right now. You’re pretty much the man of the house. You’re almost as big as I am. I’m going to let you mow the lawn—”

“I’m a little boy,” he argued.

“You’re not that little. What do you want to do? The front or the back?”

“What are you doing standing around? That’s not what I pay you for,” I called out to them.

Louie gaped before asking his brother, “She pays us?”

When your first thought after waking up includes the word “bullshit” in it, it shouldn’t be a surprise when you’re grumpy the rest of the day.

Josh was too sleepy to notice that I was grumpy, and Louie, well, who the hell knew what was going through that kid’s head. The last time I asked him what he was thinking about, he’d said “buttholes.” Since then, I kept that question to myself.

The words had barely come out of his mouth as the boys started yelling all together loud enough to be heard down the hall, “Kill him! Kill him! KILL HIM!”

And that was exactly how I found myself in a house with seven males on a Friday night.

There’re some people who you’ll never make happy no matter what you do.

“We don’t usually pray, but if you want to…”

Miss Pearl guffawed. “Us neither. Amen.”

While Louie might be the sun, Josh was the moon and the stars. He was my gravity, my tide, my ride or die. He was more like my little brother than my nephew, and in some ways, we had grown up together. I had loved him from the moment I laid eyes on him. Loved him from the moment I knew he was a spark of life, and I was going to love him every day of my life.

You didn’t know what love was until someone was willing to give up what they loved the most for you.

“Fine then. One day you’ll find some poor idiot to love you.” She smiled at me, reaching her hand across the bed, and I took it. “If you don’t, we’ll pay someone to pretend they do.”

“Mr. Dallas, are you… fifty?” Louie blurted out.

Oh my God. I couldn’t help but slap my hand over my face. These kids were so embarrassing.

“Thanks for that, Lou. No, I’m not fifty.” Dallas chuckled.

“Forty-five?”

The man behind the steering wheel made a noise. “No.”

“Forty?”

“Forty-one.”

I’d known it!

“I’m going to start in the back and work my way to the front,” he let me know in a soft, sleepy voice. “If I stop moving, give me a nudge, okay?”

I giggled, so tired it sounded more like a groan. “If I fall on my face, feel free to leave me there.”

Don’t marry somebody unless you’re sure they’ll push you around in a wheelchair when you’re old.

“Are you sitting on Dallas?”

The five-year-old smiled and nodded, whispering, “Shh,” at me. “He’s sleeping.”