“Worse. Church.”
August looks at me. “Do we go to church now?”
“No,” I say too fast.
Derby opens the cereal cabinet. “Not unless the cereal gets a lot more sinful.”
August seems satisfied by that and starts negotiating for the marshmallow cereal.
My heart is still pounding.
Derby glances at me over the cabinet door.
A silent question.
You okay?
I nod, though okay is generous.
He pours August a bowl of cereal with too many marshmallows. I don’t correct him because my knees still feel loose from the kiss and the paper and the way he said us. August eats happily at the table, Blue Rex propped beside the bowl like a breakfast witness.
For a few minutes, we are almost normal.
Derby drinks coffee.
I make toast because something in this house should survive heat.
August tells us about the dream he had where Blue Rex was a judge and sentenced Jeremy to live in a volcano.
Derby says, “Fair ruling.”
I say, “August.”
August says, “It was only dream court.”
Derby mutters, “Still counts.”
I should probably correct both of them.
I don’t.
After breakfast, August asks Derby to inspect the dinosaur courthouse because there was apparently a night collapse involving my pillow and a box of cereal. Derby pretends annoyance, but gets on the floor anyway, and there it is again.
The thing that hooks under my ribs.
A dangerous man on my son’s level, treating his imaginary world like it deserves engineering.
I stand in the kitchen doorway with the Pearly Gates bulletin folded in my hand and try not to want a future.
That is the worst part.
Not the kiss.
Not the danger.
The future.
Because for a second, it appears without permission. Derby on the floor. August bossing him around. Coffee in my hand. Rain against the windows. A motorcycle in the drive. My truck repaired somewhere outside. A house changed by cereal, curtains, and little shoes near the door.