CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jagger
My body was conditioned to wake up early every morning because I usually woke up at five, then crashed on Bennett’s couch so he and Justine could go out for a run.
But since I didn’t need to go over to their place due to the crappy weather, I just went to my home gym and did my own workout for an hour.
I still liked to run outside when the weather was nice, but I had weights, a rowing machine, and a multi-purpose weight machine in the gym.
After giving Raina a few orgasms yesterday afternoon, then having pizza and playing video games with Marco that evening, I spent the rest of the night buried inside Raina, helping her forget all about the assholes on the outside who wanted to disrupt her peace.
She fell asleep beside me in my bed and fucking hell, did she ever look good there.
I carried her back to her own bed before I headed down to the gym, because we weren’t ready for Marco to find out his mom and I were doing more than just kissing.
Halfway through my super-sets, alternating between bicep curls and deadlifts, I paused mid-curl when a soft knock at the mostly-closed door interrupted the music in my ears.
Marco appeared a moment later, and I set the weights down on the bench. “Hey, bud. Can’t sleep?”
He shook his head, his sleepy gaze sweeping around the room.
I pulled out my earbuds and turned the music off on my phone. “Wanna talk about what’s bugging you?”
He shook his head again. “What are you doing?”
“Working out. Trying to stay strong and healthy.”
“You do this every day?”
I nodded. “I try to.”
“Can you … can you teach me?”
“Totally.” I jerked my chin at the rack of weights along the wall. “Go grab a pair of whatever weight is not too light, but you think you could lift several times and it would get harder. Maybe the eights or tens.”
He did as I instructed him, and I disconnected my phone from my earbuds, then connected it to the small, portable speaker I used when I was by myself in the house.
AC/DC’s “Thunder” started to play just as Marco, with his wild coppery bedhead, returned to stand beside me facing the mirror. He went with eights.
“Okay, so we’re going to do what are called super-sets. That’s fifteen reps of one move, one muscle group, then fifteen reps of a different muscle group. Then we go back to the first, and we do that pattern three times. Got it?”
He nodded.
Even though I was already halfway through my bicep and deadlift set, I didn’t mind restarting. It was an easy pairing to start off with.
“Remember to keep your elbows glued to your ribs as you curl your fists up. And go slow.” I set one weight down and adjusted his stance a little by gently kicking his feet out wider.
“You should feel it right here.” I tapped his bicep before picking up my twenties again.
I counted us down from five, then showed him how to get into the proper stance for a Romanian Deadlift.
“You want to push your ass—I mean, butt—out behind you. Keep your legs mostly straight, a gentle bend in the knee. Do you feel it in your hamstrings? The backs of your thighs.”
“Yeah.”
“Perfect, that’s where you should feel it.”
We did fifteen RDLs, then went back to biceps, then RDLs, then biceps, and finally, our last set of RDLs. He was grunting like a tennis player near the end, his legs shaking, arms wobbly. I ducked out and grabbed him a water, dumping in a little electrolyte powder too.
“How do you feel?”
He was slightly out of breath, but smiling. “Good. What’s next?”
Grinning, I jerked my chin toward the bench. “Let’s see how much you can bench, kid.”
He reclined onto the bench, then I handed him the weight bar with eight pounds loaded onto either side. I didn’t want him to get hurt, so we’d start out light and go heavier if needed. I spotted him, holding my hands just under his in case he needed to let go.
“Great work,” I encouraged, after he finished his sixth rep. “How many more you got in you?”
“I want to get to ten,” he said, determination on his face.
“All right then, show me what you’re made of.”
His arms trembled with the last rep, but he did it. I helped him up and we high-fived, the pride on his face tangible. He sat up and his smile sank like a bag of rocks to the bottom of the sea. Then came the heavy sigh. A sigh much too big, much too deep for a nine-year-old, in my opinion.
“What’s on your mind, dude?” I asked, tapping his shoulder so knew to get up and move onto the next thing.
“I’m worried about my mom.” He grabbed the bottle of water and took another sip.
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“I know she’s scared.”
Nodding, I patted the seat for the lat pulldown on my weight machine.
He sat down and I got him ready. “Your mom is one of the toughest women I know,” I said.
“I call her a little cactus, or a porcupine. Because she’s cute, but she’s also strong and maybe a little prickly. At least until you get to know her.”
That made him chuckle, and he gripped the bar in each hand, arms raised over his head and spread out. “That’s a pretty accurate description, actually.”
“Okay, you’re going to want to pull down, just bringing the bar in front of your face.
You should feel it here.” I patted his lats so he knew where to engage.
He did as I told him. I adjusted his grip a little and spotted him like before.
“I get that you’re worried about her. And I am too.
But she’s worried about you. That’s a parent’s job.
To worry about their kids. Whether it’s being kidnapped by a lunatic, or if they’re getting enough vitamins from their veggies.
Parents worry. And you worry about your mom because you love her. ”
Meeting my gaze in the mirror, he swallowed and nodded. “It’s just the two of us. Yes, we have the others, but … it’s just us.”
“Try not to let it bother you too much, okay? You have a lot of people—a lot of grown-ups—who are worried and taking care of things. You just keep on being a kid. You’re too young to stress about these kinds of things. Just, keep your wits about you.”
“Wits?”
“Your smarts. Your mom says you climbed a tree just like Clint showed you. That was using your wits. You ran from your uncles, climbed a tree like a koala, and kept yourself from getting kidnapped. Just keep those smarts about you—those wits—and let me worry about your mom, okay?” I offered up a reassuring smile, then guided him to end that set and give his muscles a quick rest.
“Thanks, Jagger.”
“I’m here for you, kid. Anything you need.”
“Do you love my mom?” Oh, that earnest, innocent, hopeful look in his eyes cut me right to the bone. “Do you want to marry her and become my dad?”
It wasn’t often I was left speechless. I prided myself on my ability to think quick and always have a reply. But right here, right now? I had no idea what to say to Marco to not crush him, not lie, and not give him false hope.
Unease shifted into his eyes the longer I didn’t respond.
Fuck.
“Your mom and I are … still getting to know each other. Do I think I could love her and probably will fall in love with her? Yes. I do. She is … prickly, but so is a rose.” That made him smile.
“She also smells pretty good, like a rose. It’s still really early for me to give you any more answers than that.
I would love to say that we’ll get married and I’ll become more than just your friend ‘Jagger.’ If that happens and you want to call me ‘Dad,’ that’s up to you.
But it’s still really early, so I don’t want to give you false hope.
Your mom might wake up tomorrow and decide she doesn’t want to see me anymore.
So, we can hope, but I can’t make any promises. Does that make sense?”
His head bobbed, even though the disappointment was clear on his face. “Yeah, it makes sense. I hope you guys do get married. Where would we live though?”
“Way too much worrying going on in that head of yours right now, bud. That means you need to do another set. So all you’re worried about is whether your arms are going to fall off tomorrow.” I pulled the bar down for him so he could grip it, then I guided him into another set.
I had the kid exhausted and craving a nap by the time we finished our workout and found Raina in the kitchen making coffee.
“Can I have a shower?” Marco asked, his hairline damp with sweat.
“No need to ask, remember?” I said, opening the fridge and pulling out the post-workout shake I made myself earlier so it would be extra cold now.
“Right.” He took off upstairs and moments later, the water started running.
“Turning my son into a gym bro?” Raina asked with some playful side-eye as she poured us each a coffee.
“Ah.” I finished my shake, opened up the dishwasher, and put my blender bottle on the rack. “He asked if I could teach him. Who am I to turn down a fellow bro?”
That made her snort.
“He’s worried about you.”
“I know. I can see it on his face. I hate that. It’s my job to worry about him . Not the other way around.”
Shrugging, I leaned against the counter. “Just like parents worry about their kids, kids worry about their parents. It’s what you do when you love someone.”
Her gaze lifted up to mine, and she moved into me, wrapping her arms around my waist. She pressed her nose to my chest. “Even after a workout, you smell good. That’s not fair.”
Chuckling, I ran my hands up and down her back. She wore a tight-fitting, black long-sleeve shirt and dark wash jeans that hugged her ass very nicely. “You going to the vineyard to work, or gonna stay here?”
“I might stay here, if that’s okay? Since it’s Sunday and Marco is home.”
“That’s fine by me. My home is your home.”
“I try not to work too much on the weekends anyway. At least in the off-season. So I don’t have too much to do.”
A knock at the front door had me reluctantly peeling away from her. Clint and Myla were on the other side, both of them with concerned looks on their faces.