Chapter 7
SEVEN
The auditorium was full, and our seats were in the middle, so once we were sitting, there was no way to get back up. It was why, before we went in, I was squatting down in front of Pip, asking if he had to go to the bathroom.
He was standing, as was his habit, between my thighs, arm around my neck, leaning on me as he considered the question. Tristan, to my right, was waiting for the answer as well.
“I dunno, maybe.”
“We could go just in case,” I suggested. He was thinking on it.
“Hey, Weber, Tristan.”
I lifted my head and waved at James Barnes, Tristan’s soccer coach. “Hey, James, how’s your daughter?”
“Good,” he said, reaching us, ruffling Tristan’s hair in greeting. “She’s good. Just lost a tooth. Thank God it was a baby one.”
“That other kid should be out for the year. He’s a menace.”
“Oh, I agree. One red card isn’t enough of a deterrent for him or his father.”
“Have you got a kid playing in the concert?”
“Yeah, my youngest daughter, Jane. She’s the same age as Micah.”
I nodded, rising, picking up Pip and lifting him with me. “Lemme introduce everyone. This here is Lyn Easton, Tristan’s mom, and this is my husband, her brother, Dr. Cyrus Benning. And you know Pip.”
“Nice to meet you all.” He shook their hands, but really, you could tell, not giving a crap. His attention was back on me fast. “So, Weber, Thursday the bus for soccer camp leaves at eight in the morning, so I’ll meet you and Tris there at six thirty.”
“We’ll be there.”
“I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to make any of Tristan’s games,” Lyn said quickly, getting his attention. “It feels odd to just now be meeting the coach of my son’s team.”
“Everyone’s busy,” he told her. “But you have Weber to stand in for you, and for that you’re very fortunate.”
“I agree.” She smiled at him.
James turned back to me. “And again, I can’t thank you enough, Web. You’re the only guardian that everyone agreed could go. Everybody else has a stick up their—” He remembered that Tristan and Pip were there. “Um, had something to say about another parent, except you.”
“Well, I appreciate that.”
He squeezed my shoulder and left us then.
“Lemme take Pip to the bathroom,” I told Lyn and Cy. “You too, Tris.”
The three of us headed for the restroom, and we would have made it quicker, but I was stopped by Micah’s second-grade teacher, who gushed about his wonderful diorama of the inside of a potato bug.
I thought it was disgusting, but she really liked it.
She was also looking forward to seeing me at the parent-teacher conference, since Lyn would be out of town on business that week.
We were waylaid by Tristan’s teacher next, then several parents wanting to say hello.
The boys and I barely made it to our seats before the lights dimmed and the curtain rose, revealing three rows of kids.
The Easter concert was beginning. At Christmas, the whole school participated in the program, but for this one, only the school chorus—of which Micah had become a member at the start of the new year—performed.
There had been many changes. The first thing I did was ask Cy to invite Lyn and the boys to live with us.
He had all that room, and she was alone with her boys in a house she didn’t love and no longer felt comfortable in.
She had been cheated on in what was supposed to be her sanctuary.
It wasn’t a good place for her. And having her drive across town every morning to drop off her children and her car with me was just a pain.
This way she could go at a slower speed in the morning, collect herself, sit, read the paper, and prepare herself for her day instead of jump-starting her heart with the blare of her alarm going off.
Cy was unsure. We had just become an us, and he didn’t want anything to wreck that, wanted to make sure we had the best chance of survival.
“But I’m here,” I’d told him, staring into his eyes. “And I ain’t goin’ nowhere. You can’t get rid of me, no matter what.”
“I’m not worried about that. You’re never leaving me. I won’t let you.”
“So then?”
He agreed to the move because, above all, the man was logical. It just made good sense.
Lyn didn’t resist me. She wanted her life to be solid again, to have a new foundation.
She too was ready to build it on me, and I was humbled by her faith.
I also knew she was still trying to put money into the checking account I shared with Cy, but he had it blocked so she couldn’t.
I didn’t need her money. I just needed her and her kids and all of them loving me.
The boys lost their minds at the news, and even as we set ground rules, they were too excited to take them all in.
They got a new house, their own rooms, and when Cy brought home a stray pup that had been found behind the dumpster at the hospital, we became a family of seven—us and Reba the dog—named after my favorite singer in the world.
The vet said she was probably half Labrador retriever, half malamute, and would eat us out of house and home.
She was big and friendly and sweet up until the day a guy came up on me a little too fast, and suddenly there was snarling, the show of teeth, and her hair standing on end.
Apparently, Reba was ten kinds of even-tempered as long as you didn’t threaten her family. I was much the same, so I understood.
Christmas had been amazing. We stayed home, and Cy’s folks came to us.
They were thrilled I was there for good, even more excited by the living arrangement of their children, and when Owen took me for a walk, his arm across my shoulders, I knew we were going to be friends.
He and his wife were crazy about me. It was overwhelming but so nice.
Cy put my name on everything, which I didn’t want him to do, but to him, again, it was logical.
If, heaven forbid, he died, he wanted me taken care of, as well as the boys.
Plus, he liked his name and mine together on any official documents, like a deed to a house, insurance policies, power of attorney, and things like that.
It made him sublimely happy. He also had everything from the storage facility in Abilene shipped to me, which I appreciated more than I could say.
I had it all stored at a new place close by so that when I was ready to go through it all one day, I could.
I wasn’t ready yet, but there was no rush.
In February, when he was supposed to go on his trip with his friends, he canceled, and his friends came to us and witnessed our marriage, along with fifty other people, in our big backyard.
His friend Will was his best man, Lyn was mine, and she looked great in her suit.
The boys got to stand up with us as well, all except Pip, who got tired.
I had to carry him back down the aisle after we said our vows and pledged our lives to one another.
At the reception, Cy told his buddies that it might be a while before he was ready to go on more trips with them.
He would love to see them if family trips were an option, which had to include something dog friendly, but he was the happiest he’d ever been and didn’t want to be separated from any part of his happily ever after.
It was nice that they all understood. They had families too, and I was looking forward to the trip planned for the following summer.
Lyn had to move a lot of things—beds, television sets, game consoles—but a lot of it, like the rest of her old furniture, she sold with the house.
To get rid of it, she made the price tag a steal, but that was fine.
Her ex-husband, Mark, had signed over everything to her in the divorce.
He just wanted his freedom and not to have to pay alimony or child support.
She told him she wouldn’t have had it any other way. He wanted a new life, and so did she.
“Thank you, Cy,” she’d told her brother as she bawled the day the divorce was finalized, clutching his hand in the kitchen, which had become the center of our house.
“If it wasn’t for you and Web, I would have had to fight him for child support, and I don’t want anything from him ever again.
I just want him to stay in Vegas and never come back. ”
“I know, sweetie,” he’d told her, hand on her cheek.
“I would have had to go to court if it weren’t for you and my brother, Web.” She’d launched herself into my arms. “Thank you for letting me have my life and self-respect. I’ll always treasure what you did for us. I love you both so much.”
As Cy got ready for bed that night, he grumbled, “She loves you too much, if you ask me.”
“Howzat?” I asked from the safety of the bed as he stormed around the room.
“You haven’t noticed she’s always touching you, and hugging you, and leaning on you, and staring at you… Have you missed all that?”
I chuckled. “C’mere, darlin’.”
“No, I’m serious,” he snipped at me. “I know she loves me, but I also think that if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, she wouldn’t be all that broken up.”
My laughter had to be stifled, so I used my pillow.
“Web.”
I lay down and smothered myself. When he pulled the pillow away, the tears were rolling down my cheeks.
“Weber Yates!”
“You’re jealous of your own sister.” He was glaring as I pulled him on top of me. “You know you’re the only one I see. Don’t be an idiot.”
“Nice,” he muttered, but disgruntlement gave way to passion when I kissed him.
A month after our wedding, Lyn legally made me the guardian of her children that her ex had given her full custody of. While I was deeply touched, I worried, as I was now fully there, rooted in Cy’s life, that he might get sick of me. As it turned out though, I still made the man breathless.