I was a wreck on the drive here. White-knuckling the steering wheel, rehearsing what to say, fully expecting him to climb in and ask where his daddy is with that look kids get when the wrong adult shows up.
Instead, he spotted me through the truck window, broke into a grin so wide it crinkled his nose, and jumped right in like it was the most normal thing in the world.
And that is a relief I can feel in my bones.
I crawl through the school traffic, tapping my nails on the steering wheel. This truck is nothing like anything I’ve ever driven. I feel like I’m captaining a ship. A very expensive, very large ship with blind spots the size of small buildings. And I’m trying my absolute hardest not to curb the damn thing, because Hunter will know.
“Wyatt, your daddy is doing some work. I was wondering… if maybe you wanted to grab some food with me?”
He turns to face me, taps his finger on his lips like a tiny businessman about to start negotiating with me. “Yeah.” He nods. “I could eat. The food at school is crappy.”
My eyes go wide. “Wyatt Sterling. Language.” I hold up a finger. “Say it was…”
I pause. The first word that pops into my head isshit.So no. Not that one.
“Say what instead?” he asks, watching me struggle with genuine curiosity.
“Hmm. Bad. The food at school is bad.”
He laughs. A full, hiccupping belly laugh that fills the entire cab. “Daddy lets me say crappy.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Oh, does he now?”
He nods. “Yep.”
Maybe I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. Should six-year-olds say crappy? I genuinely don’t know. My mother would have had a fit if I’d said it at any age. Probably would still now. But then, my mother has an image to maintain and a stick so far up her?—
Not the point.
“Okay.” Wyatt’s voice gets quieter. He looks down at his lap. “I lied. He doesn’t.”
I laugh and reach over to ruffle his hair. “Yeah. I didn’t think so, buddy.”
He chews on his lip. Those blue eyes flick up at me with the exact same expression his father uses when he wants something and knows he’s about to get it.
“Can we still go for food?”
“Yes. Of course, we can. I’m not mad at you.”
His face lights up so fast. “And ice cream? We can get that too?”
“Yep. If you eat all of your dinner.”
Maybe I can do this parenting thing.
He pumps his fist. “Deal.”
I pull into the diner, the same one his father proposed to me in earlier today, which is a sentence my brain still can’t fully process, and park up in the biggest space I can find. I still clip the curb. Just barely.
“Oh!” Wyatt presses his face against the window. “This is the place Daddy always takes me. He says it’s where his daddy used to take him.”
My heart melts.
To most people, The Beam is just an old diner. But to Hunter, it holds something deeper. A place where a boy and his father sat in a vinyl booth and drank milkshakes, and the world outside didn’t matter.
The place where he asked me to marry him.
“You’re staying with my daddy, right?” Wyatt’s voice pulls me back.