Chapter Thirty LOGAN - ONE YEAR LATER
Chapter Thirty
LOGAN - ONE YEAR LATER
Dominic may have been my son but he was a very different sixteen-year-old to what I was.
Since the kid got his drivers permit, he’d been out nearly every weekend.
We had the safe sex talk and he assured me he wasn’t having sex.
I wasn’t sure if I believed him but I needed to be prepared.
Something told me if he wasn’t careful, I would have some sweet girl’s father at my door with a shotgun.
Dom joined me in the kid’s bathroom. “You called?”
Oh yeah, that attitude hadn’t gone anywhere.
Most days I got to see the lovely young man he was becoming but there were days when the kid drove me up the wall.
“Yes, I wanted to talk about the Sadie Hawkins dance. I believe Tiffany Snow asked you again. She’s the same one who asked you last year, right. ”
“Yes.” He rolled his eyes. He’d ended up not going because it was just after the shooting and his friends had all bailed as well.
“So, she asked you again?” I didn’t think Dom had a crush on the girl. He dated around but no one seemed to hold his interest for long. “She must really like you.”
Dom shook his head. “Not really. I don’t think she even remembered asking me last year. She dates around and she’s really mean to my girl friends.”
I frowned at him. “Then why are you going to a dance with her?”
“For the same reason I wanted to go with her last year.” He scowled at me as if I was dumb. “She asked and she’s hot… I mean, she’s pretty.”
“Dom. You cannot be interested in someone just for her looks.”
For a moment I wondered if he could roll those eyes any wider. “Of course, I can. Not everyone falls in love with their soulmate when they’re in kindergarten. Some of us have fun instead.”
I was not going to get into how much fun I actually had as a teenager. What I needed to do was mitigate the consequences of that fun. So instead, I pointed to the very top shelf.
The one that Landon couldn’t reach even if he decided to stack chairs and reach for stuff by himself.
That little incident necessitated a trip to the emergency room. I wasn’t at work at the time since I’d received the promotion and had regular hours. However, no one hesitated as I walked into the ER barking orders with a bloody cloth against Landon’s wound.
No, he wouldn’t even attempt to reach the very top shelf.
“There are two boxes up there. I don’t use condoms so you will need to replace them with your allowance.
Or I can get more if you can’t buy them.
Go to the drugstore out of town. Mrs. Spike likes to gossip and you don’t want the whole town to know you bought condoms. It may not bother you, but it will affect whichever girl you’re dating. ”
Dom looked at me with daggers in his eyes. “I am not having sex. Not ye… I’m not having sex.”
I looked at him and looked at the top of the cupboard. “Is there a chance they could expire?”
He let out a sigh. “God, I hope not.”
I stifled my smile and walked out. At the door I turned back to him. “Do we need to have another talk about everything or do you remember what I told you?”
“You’d think that getting the ‘birds and bees’ talk from a doctor would be less awkward.” He eyed the box and then back at me. “I never want to repeat that conversation. Ever.”
I smiled and walked out. But I couldn’t miss the slide of the cupboard as he opened it. Yeah, we were in for a world of trouble if we weren’t careful.
“Daddy.” Landon called from his high chair, frown firmly in place. “I don’t want bocolli.”
“Broccoli is good for you. It will make you big and strong. Like me.”
“And Unca Mase.”
I rolled my eyes and exhaled. “Yes, and Uncle Mason.”
My recovery had taken longer than I would’ve liked and I could only get to the gym a few months after I had been shot. Mason was the one to help with my training. My son had watched his uncle spar with me a few times. My best friend had no problem besting me in front of my kid.
Not that I minded. Landon and Vicky were happy and healthy and ours.
While Landon was a lot more comfortable speaking to all of us, he still wasn’t much of a talker. He was coming out of the toddler tantrum phase but more and more he would throw the silent treatment when something upset him. I was not a fan of that.
His sister, however, had started walking and talking. The walking part she had mastered. Most of the time. The talking? Well, Vicky had a lot to say, not much of it was coherent. She was able to pronounce cookie and grandma.
I was convinced that Hope Salinger was my little girl’s favorite person.
My mother-in-law had more than a dozen grandchildren once you included the honorary ones who became family over the years.
She adored each one of them. She still did dance videos with Skylar and continued to teach Dom and Aidan how to both cook and fix a tire.
The most important part of the last year was the day I spent at the court.
Let’s just say the wheels of justice were not speedy.
Bex and I decided we would have a courthouse wedding on the same day as the adoption hearing.
Romantic in concept, but fuck, it required a lot of patience.
We were only able to officially adopt the children a few weeks ago, even though they’d felt like ours since the day they walked into our lives.
And Bex had only been my wife for the same amount of time.
And I had known that was something I wanted since before I hit puberty.
She came into the kitchen holding and swaying a crying and red-faced Vicky. “She tried to hit Landon and nearly fell out of the chair. Got more of a fright than anything else but her dinner went everywhere.” She gestured in the direction of the bathroom. “How’d that go.”
“You really want to know?”
“Not really.” She walked over to the couch and gave Vicky a bottle, allowing the little girl to hold it herself. “But we know better than anyone that we do not have the luxury of being ignorant when it comes to these things.”
I let out a sigh. “I showed him where they were. I’m sure he’ll use them.”
Bex shuddered at my words. “Damn, I didn’t need to know that part. He is supposed to be my sweet little boy.”
“Are we talking about the same kid?” I frowned at her. “The one with a permanent scowl, like he is generally pissed off with the world. That sweet boy?”
The security app on my phone chimed alerting me that someone was on the property. I checked the camera to see Nick walking toward the front door. I opened just as he was about to knock.
“Evening Evans Family.”
“Unca Nick. You want bocolli?”
I sighed and glared at the three-year-old. He’d be four in a few weeks and Bex had a party planned. That was if he didn’t drive us to drink before then. “Landon. Eat your vegetables. Now.”
My son looked at his plate and popped another piece in his mouth and pulled a face. Yep, I would be getting silent treatment until bedtime.
Nick pulled a face like he was trying not to laugh. “Wow. You’ve got that Dad-voice down, don’t you.”
“If you had to have the kind of uncomfortable conversation that I just had, you’d see why it is necessary.”
“Tiffany Snow?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve seen her at little league, her little sister plays with Mattie and Cooper. Only them and their older brother. I never see those parents.”
I wasn’t sure those parents were around all that often. They were never at parent-teacher nights and the one-time Tiffany was in the ER, her older brother was with her and her parents were nowhere to be seen.
“Anyway, I’m guessing discussing teenage gossip is not why you’re here.”
“Oh, yeah. I needed to talk to Bex, and neither of you were answering your phones.”
Bex stood with a sleepy Victoria. “Yeah, we had an issue with Dom’s phone at breakfast and dinner so we decided everyone leaves their phones on silent and in our pockets or another room. Only the alarm app is audible.”
“Makes sense.” He handed a folder over to Bex.
“What’s this?” Bex paged through the folder that looked to contain mostly photographs. She looked up at Nick. “Is this Julie in these photos?”
“Yep. Photos of her all over town. There are more from a few other places but there were not supposed to be cameras. And yet, they managed to capture her.”
“Nick, that makes no sense.”
He stuck his hand in his pocket and handed Bex a flash drive. “This is the video footage.”
“Nick, are you sure this is real?”
“Jared checked. It's authentic.”
“So, you automatically think she’s in danger?” I loved when my wife stood up to her brothers. The defiance was a beautiful thing to watch. “Why are you here?”
“Because we need to come up with a plan. Julie needs to move from the building. And… well, it would be better if her ex father in law can’t touch her.”
Bex looked at Nick and handed Vicky over to me. Then she turned on her brother. “I’m not going to like this am I?”
“She needs another husband. Or at the very least a pretend fiance. Something to let them know to stay away from her.”
“Are you insane?” Bex’s loud voice had Vicky stiffening in my arms.
Nick’s eyes darted between the kids and back to his sister. “That’s what Jared said when I floated the idea past him. But I have the perfect person in mind.”
The staring contest was one silent communication. Bex closed her eyes and shook her head “What do you want?”
She wasn’t happy but she accepted as Nick laid out the plan for her. Once he was gone and I had gotten all the kids to bed, she fell into my embrace. “It never ends does it?”
I held her tight. “It's not supposed to, Becky. But I can assure you, I’ll be with you for the rest of it.”