Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
E very morning. Trey got up at five a.m., made himself a cup of coffee, and went outside to sit and wait for the sun to come up and have a chat with Kait.
He loved the mountains. Trey absolutely loved watching the world come alive with the sunrise making the whole sky turn red and gold. He knew that one day he might not have this, and there was no way to tell, so every morning he hauled his ass out of the bed and he had this cup of coffee.
Everyone knew, unless it was life or death, do not call before six. Let him have his first cup of coffee. The kids were asleep. The world was asleep.
It was just him and Kait, having their daily update.
“Oh lady, this is going to be the first of a long series of days. Noah is getting big on us. It’s his first day of kindergarten. Can you believe it? He’s so proud of his Gru backpack. He has a sun butter and blackberry jelly sandwich, an oatmeal cookie, a package of Cheetos, and an apple in his lunchbox.
“You should see it. It’s bright yellow with Minion eyeballs. He helped me pack it himself. Oh, and there’s a juice box. Fruit punch.”
“He’s very scared. I told you I took him to meet the teacher, right? She’s a sweetheart, but she can’t be more than four or five years old herself, I swear to God. She’s only little, but I mean as dear as can be. I think he is a little in love with her already. His first crush. He really likes the idea of having friends. He loves the idea of a reading place and a recess place and showing his sister everything place.” Trey chuckled and shook his head. “I swear, he’s so excited about being the eldest, about being the big brother. I think that you probably ingrained that in him. Take care of his little sister, right?
“He’s really angry still, but it’s getting better. The therapist says it’s going to happen, you know. She says there’ll be ups and downs, but that he’s healing. That we should be pleased with this progress. Losing you has been hard for him. Zoe was so little, but Noah? I worry that he hates me a little bit, that he blames me.
“I’m still looking for a nanny. I just haven’t found anybody I trust with your babies. Everyone says I need to just lean into the process, but if I hired someone, and they did something wrong, I would never be able to see it. If they hurt the kids, I couldn’t live with myself.” His eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know. Kait. I’m just…I’m so lonely. So scared. And I don’t regret saying yes about the kids, but I kind of wonder about your sanity. I mean, why me? I don’t know anything about being a dad. I don’t have any way to really take care of them. All I have is money. Money and Ben and Mel, right? And West. Somehow there’s still West.”
He drank deep of his coffee. “I don’t know, honey. I’m an idiot. Shit, I hired my ex. Of course I’m an idiot. He’s doing a good job. At least that’s what everybody tells me. I’m so tempted to just saddle up one of the horses and go riding. Just go without anybody watching me. Nobody to worry that I’m going to fall and hit my head or lead a horse into a fiery volcano.
“I’m not sure if a horse would go into fiery volcanoes even if, you know, West asked them to.
“All right. Okay.” Trey took a deep breath. “I suppose I should let you go, huh? I mean, how does that even work? My talking into the void, I mean. Do you hear me somehow? My logic brain says there’s no way, but I have to admit, my heart says that you wouldn’t leave these kids without keeping an eye on them. And since you decided I was the guy, maybe you figured you wanted to listen to these daily updates. So depending on the time zone of heaven—and I’m assuming it’s in mountain time because hello—it’s early. I appreciate you listening and letting me vent. We miss you down here. We wish you could have stayed a little longer, but today is gonna be a great day. Today is Noah’s very first day of school.”
He took another deep breath, then let it out. He sipped his coffee, letting the caffeine wash through him. How was this his life?
Trey closed his eyes so they would stop trying to work, and he listened to the sounds of his world starting to come alive. Birds singing. A rooster crowing. The dogs barking.
Little Nate bellowing off-key all of a sudden on the way to the barn.
He chuckled at that, shaking his head.
It was time to get the kids up, get Noah ready for school.
Trey hadn’t found anyone he trusted to drive yet, so West offered to do it so Trey could take Noah in for his first day.
He was just about to stand up when he heard a little voice say, “I don’t want to go to school. Can I just stay here? I don’t want to go.”
Oh, sweet boy. Trey spread his arms, letting the light blanket he had already draped over himself fall open.
It didn’t take about a second for Noah to crawl into his lap, and he wrapped the blanket around them. “What’s going on?”
“I’m scared. I don’t want everybody to not like me. I don’t want to be the only boy without a mom. What if—? What if the teacher doesn’t like me? What if she thinks I’m dumb?”
At least most of those were absolutely normal worries. Trey was shooting for normal as possible. “No one is going to think you’re dumb. You’re fine. You’re very smart. You know your ABCs, you know your colors, you know your numbers. You know your shapes. And anything you don’t know about, that’s why you go to school—to learn how to learn how to know things.”
He could sense Noah working that over in his head. “Really?”
“Yes, really. School is about having new experiences and then putting them together to think things through. That’s all it is. It’s about learning how to make friends. It’s about learning how to read. It’s about figuring out how to do things. You’re going to be great.” That part he could say without a single hint of hesitation. His son was amazing.
Thank God he knew that too. Pep talks were not his strong suit. Years of running a corporation had proven that. This was more praying for divine intervention to help him get through this.
‘You are going to come pick me up after, right?”
“West, Zoe, and I will be there after school, I promise. We will pick you up in the truck.”
“Okay. And they’ll let me go to the bathroom if I need to?” They’d gone over this. He’d even walked Noah to the bathroom, but he could do it again.
“Yes, there will be bathroom breaks, and if you have to pee, all you have to do is hold up your hand and ask. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” He hugged Noah gently. “And there’s going to be recess on the jungle gyms, and there’s going to be lunchtime and playtime, and all those kids who are just waiting to get to know you. They’re all new. This is the first day of school for all of them. None of them have been in school before.”
Noah bounced in his lap, wiggled. “I like that.”
“I thought you would.” He hugged that little body hard. “I’m so proud of you, kiddo.”
“I’m proud of you too, Da. I think this is hard for you.”
“It is. I’m going to miss you all day.” He kissed the top of that silky head of hair. “And I know Zoe is going to be a lonely-monster.”
“Uh-huh. You should put stuff in her pack-pack and take her to the barn to visit the dogs.”
“Should I? I think that’s a good idea.” Trey did like the dogs, and so did Zoe. They needed to get another house dog, really, but it was just one more thing in a long line of tough fucking things. He didn’t know how to deal with that, so he didn’t.
“So, what would you like for breakfast? You can have oats. You can have cereal You can have?—”
“Mark is making waffles!” The excitement in Noah’s voice made him grin.
“Oh, special breakfast for the first day of school? Nice!”
Noah giggled, the sound filling the air. “That’s what Mark said. I like waffles. It’s going to be the best day, right, Da?”
“It is going to be the best day,” he agreed.
If it wasn’t, somebody was going to die. Because Trey had had enough, and he needed this for little Noah.
“I think I’m going to wear my Mario T-shirt today and my new shoes.”
“Sounds perfect. Go on and get your clothes on. I’m going to get me another cup of coffee.”
Noah ran off, and he sat there for a second with his eyes closed. If this child was up at six every morning. It was going to get to be a really long wait before they left at seven thirty to go to the school.
Trey heard the footsteps coming up the gravel drive, and he didn’t bother to open his eyes. That was West. He knew because West had had an accident when he was doing rodeo in school. The horse that stepped on him and broke his hip, put him in the hospital with surgery and traction and all sorts of shit. Apparently it had made an impression, because West had given up any thought of rodeoing. There was just the littlest slide on the left step when West moved, no one could see it, not even a little bit, and he didn’t tell anybody.
But there were scars from the surgery, and there was the slightest little slip every other step.
“Good morning, West.”
“Morning, Trey. I don’t mean to bother you, but?—”
He waved one hand. “It’s no bother. What are you up to this early in the morning?”
“I’m a ranch foreman. There is no early in the morning.”
“Uh-huh. What’s up? Want coffee?” What had West up by the main house this early in the morning?
“That sounds great, honey. I know I’m damn early, but I didn’t want to get busy and forget that I was driving today. Big day, huh?”
“Yeah. Get you some coffee and tell Mark to make a few extra waffles for you, huh?” He wasn’t ready to leave his perch.
“Got it.” West went past him, a warm squeeze to his shoulder surprising him. The man was back minutes later, settling into a chair with a grunt, but not jabbering at him.
The coffee smelled good. He reminded himself he needed to get himself another cup, but moving would suck.
They sat there for a while in blessed—well, it wasn’t silence. The ranch was never silent, and it was absolutely waking up. He could hear Nate’s dogs barking, the sharp yapping a complaint about being locked in, and the roosters greeting the day with their coarse cries. He could smell the sweet toastiness of waffles cooking, along with the salt and spice of the sausage.
Best of all, he heard all the rattles and thumps and chatter of the kids inside through the screen door. It all sounded natural. Normal.
“I can’t believe it’s his first day of school.” The sound of his voice surprised him. “He was three when I met him. He had a brand-new baby sister, and he hated her. Kait thought that he was never going to learn to talk, believe it or not.” She’d been scared there was something wrong with his ears, but he’d needed to bloom in his own time, at his own rate.
“So he’s five, and she’s two?”
“He’ll be six next month. He’s a September baby. And Miss Zoe will be three. Goodness, a little more than week after that.”
“So they’re both Virgos?”
“Listen to you being all astrological and shit.” He chuckled and shook his head. He was super into astrology. Not in that serious here’s-what-my-horoscope-says, but, in his experience? Things worked like the astrologers thought they did. After all, he was the January baby, so he knew about stubborn. “Actually, no. No, it’s on the fifteenth. Miss Zoe is on the twenty-fourth, so she is officially the Libra.”
West cracked up, his laugh like a warm hug. “Okay, I can see that. That works. Are you going to have a birthday party for Noah?”
Dammit. “I guess I need to e-mail his teacher and ask her how that works. Do they do, like, birthdays at school? Should I send birthday invitations? I guess I have to ask.”
“Do you know what he wants?”
“Hell, man. It has never been an issue until, well, actually right this second.” It hadn’t been an issue, because he hadn’t thought about it. Seriously, he knew what birthdays were, and he knew when the kids’ birthdays were, which he thought was a huge success on his part.
Maybe he’d get his PA to arrange the birthday party. Race could do that.
Didn’t they have parties in a box? Something that showed up at the door, he pushed a button, it exploded toys or clowns or video games or whatever all over the house, and then he was off the hook. Surely that was a thing.
“If you need help, just let me know,” West murmured. “I can take you into town to get shit. Or I can take Mark.”
“I thought you were going to assign a cowboy to drive.” He tilted his head, listening because Zoe was singing.
“I don’t have one yet.” West chuckled. “I’m your guy.”
Yeah, he wished.
“It’s not Mark’s job. He has enough to do with keeping the house clean and cooking. I don’t pay him well enough to put together a kids party. Besides…maybe I should do it? I mean. I could hire a party planner. Do you think I need something that fancy?”
“Trey, I think you should ask Noah.”
Duh. “Right, he’s old enough to have opinions.” He was raising children with independent thoughts and things. It was a little unnerving, but so cool.
West chuckled at him. “Yes, he is absolutely old enough to have opinions, which you have seen demonstrated rather distinctly.”
West had a point. “Yeah, I’ll just ask him what he wants after today is over. I also will e-mail the teacher to see what kind of school thing and how many kids are in the class, so I know how many invitations to send.”
“You’re just gonna invite everybody?”
“Would you want to be the kid who didn’t get invited? This isn’t like a slumber party, or a we’re all going to go to the movies with, you know, three of us. It’s a party. I don’t want to be the person who raises the kid who doesn’t invite everybody in the class. That’s…I don’t know man, I think that seems mean.”
Did that make him touchy-feely and shit? And if it did, did he hate that? He wanted a kid who was emotionally available and literate and had a way to have conversations with himself about how he felt. If that was touchy-feely, then fine, he could be touchy-feely. “You know, not everybody has to be gruff.”
There was a silence, then, “Okay, I don’t think you have to be gruff, honey.”
It occurred to Trey that he had been having most of that conversation with West in his head, and he hadn’t actually said it out loud. Probably good, but also a touch awkward. “I just worry about him and about being a good dad. I want to be a good father to him and to Zoe. I know that that makes me a little weird.”
“I think that sounds really normal. I don’t think anyone goes into parenting wanting to be shitty at it.”
Another really good point.
“I wish that my granny and grandpa were here. They would know what to say to Noah to make it better.”
His folks had been gone since he was little. He had lost them in a car accident. He’d been away at school. No one had been drunk, no one had been speeding. It was slick, and then the inexperienced driver overcorrected, flipped a car which landed on his parents’ convertible, and that was it.
He remembered them fondly, but he’d been away for so much of the time that they were more memories and snippets of a song he wanted to remember. Granny and Grandpa had been actual humans for him, real people who’d had faults and amazing qualities.
He’d gotten to know them both as a child and as an adult, and they’d never been ashamed of him.
Not of the fact that he was smart or gay or that he liked living in the city with lots of people.
None of that had ever mattered.
“He’s going to be fine, Trey. He’s an amazing kid. You’re helping him be that amazing kid.” West reached over and patted his hand. “Jesus, you’re as cold as ice. Why aren’t you wearing something warmer?”
“It’s going to be eighty-five degrees today. I was starting out like I could hold out.” He hated changing clothes with a passion.
“Weirdo.”
“Yes.”
“Waffles are ready, Da!” Noah called. “I helped Zoe get dressed, too.”
“What a helper boy! We’ll be right in.” Under his breath he muttered, “God save us all.”
Someone needed to. They were a pirate ship with a parrot and no captain at the helm.