Hold on Tight

  to hear her laugh and see her eyes light up. I also wanted to make her smile. And see her eat. Dammit.

  “You don’t like burgers?” I asked, trying to think of a way to keep her in here.

  “She loves ’em,” Micah offered.

  “I got you the best,” I told her.

  She looked like she wanted some but was fighting it. Was it because she couldn’t look at me? I didn’t like that. I wanted her comfortable with me.

  “You didn’t eat nothing but a few pretzels with peanut butter, Momma.”

  The kid was telling on her. Which was funny and was giving me leverage.

  “You don’t have to eat the whole thing, just eat some. I know you don’t eat a lot.”

  Micah looked up at me and frowned. “Yeah, she does! She can eat lots more than me. She normally eats a whole burger, fries, and a piece of pie.”

  Then why the hell had she picked at the pizza? Was it really because of the “average” comment? I’d straightened that out already. Hell, after last night she shouldn’t have any concerns around me.

  “Gotta keep those curves in place. It’d be a shame for them to disappear,” I told her.

  “What curves?” Micah asked.

  Her eyes went wide. She looked over at the bags in my hand and let out a sigh, then smiled. “Okay. I’ll eat. It smells delicious.”

  Score.

  Micah started telling me about his day at school, and I tried like hell to listen to him and not focus on his mother sitting down across from me, eating her burger like it was the best thing she’d ever put in her mouth. She’d clearly been starving, from the way she was eating. I hated that she’d picked at her pizza the other night and had been hungry. All because of my dumbass comment to my mother.

  “And Mama T said I could come over to her house and stay the night again soon. We’re out of school Friday and Mama T said I could stay with her ’cause I don’t want to stay at day care. Her and Grandpa Dave’s house is more funner.”

  “More fun,” Sienna corrected him.

  “Yeah, more fun, and so maybe I could stay the night tomorrow night. I told Momma, but she said she’d have to talk to Mama T first.”

  I had no doubt my mother would take Micah any time he wanted her to. My dad, too. When Micah had called him Grandpa Dave the other day, he’d had to leave the room because he’d teared up. My dad wasn’t a crier. Seeing him get emotional like that wasn’t something I was used to. Once again it made me feel like I owed Sienna Roy the world. She’d been alone and scared, but she’d had Dustin’s baby anyway and she’d been a damn good mom. All on her own. Micah was the healing I didn’t think my parents would ever find. Because one young girl was brave enough to be a mother without a family’s support around her.

  My chest ached and something fierce settled in. I had to protect this woman. Even if I was protecting her from myself. I wanted her to have nothing but happiness in life. She deserved that. More than anyone else I knew, Sienna Roy deserved the best life had to offer.

  And the best wasn’t me.

  “And I bet that Momma could go on another date with Mr. Dodge.” Micah’s comment snapped me out of my thoughts.

  “Mr. Dodge hasn’t asked me out again, Micah,” Sienna said to her son while setting drinks down in front of us.

  “Then he’s an idiot,” I said. The dude had stepped way up out of his league with Sienna.

  Sienna laughed. “I think he might have seen a side of me he wasn’t crazy about.”

  She was referring to our argument in the parking lot. She’d been all fired up and gorgeous that night. I couldn’t even remember it fondly, though, because the memory of my hurting her arm was too painful. I hated myself for that.

  “Then Uncle Dewayne can take you out on a date. You think Momma is pretty, don’t you?” Micah said, and I watched Sienna freeze.

  A panicked look came over her face, and then she looked at me. I wasn’t sure what to say to the kid. I thought his momma was gorgeous, but I didn’t think saying that would help get him off this idea.

  “Um, well, see, Uncle Dewayne is family. You don’t date family,” Sienna said to Micah, and took a seat across from him.

  Micah frowned, then shrugged. Luckily, he let it go while he took a bite of his burger.

  “How’s the mac ’n’ cheese burger?” I asked him, wanting to ease the sudden awkward silence.

  Micah gave me a thumbs-up.

  “I can’t believe you got them to put mac ’n’ cheese on the burger,” Sienna said with an amused smile.

  “My boy wants a mac ’n’ cheese burger, he’s gonna get one,” I told her.

  There was a flash of something in her eyes, and then she looked down at her own burger and studied it a moment before she picked it up and bit into it.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d said, but she got quiet after that. Micah didn’t. He started telling me all about the Heat’s lineup this year and how they were going to beat each team. Or how LeBron James was going to beat each team. I didn’t have anything to add to the conversation because basketball had never been my sport. But I listened.

  SIENNA

  After I finished my burger, I excused myself and went to the safety of my bedroom while Micah took Dewayne to the living room to make him watch Return of the Jedi. It was a school night, and I knew Micah would end up falling asleep twenty minutes into the movie. He was like clockwork with his sleeping pattern. The kid required serious sleep.

  I would need to be out of the bath and dressed when Dewayne left, so I could make sure Micah was tucked into bed. I sat down on the bed and reached for my phone. It was time I made a call.

  I’d been putting off calling my aunt Cathy for two reasons. One, I wanted to see if she’d ever call me and check in on us. She hadn’t. Two, I was thankful for my aunt Cathy’s willingness to let me live in her house for so long, and I didn’t want to hear she’d had anything to do with the Falcos not getting my letters. But I honestly didn’t see any other explanation. I had resigned myself to the fact that my aunt Cathy had taken them.

  I scrolled down the list of numbers in my phone until I found hers, and then I pressed send. When I had told Aunt Cathy I was moving, she hadn’t seemed to care either way. She was glad my mother had finally stepped up to help me, but that was about it. No warm hugs or any other emotions.

  “Hello?” Aunt Cathy’s familiar voice came over the line.

  “Hey, Aunt Cathy, it’s Sienna,” I said.

  “Good to hear from you, Sienna. I take it life there is good?”

  She was always so formal. Even with Micah she had been stern and strict. She didn’t do nonsense of any kind. She reminded me a lot of my dad.

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s good here. Micah likes his new school, and I am doing well at my job. Micah, uh, met the Falcos. They didn’t know about him until they met him. Now they’re very active in his life.”

  I stopped and waited for her to say something. She didn’t.

  “I sent letters to them. So many letters. I wanted and needed them to know about Micah. Micah needed them. Tabby is the wonderful grandmother I knew she would be. Micah missed that for five years of his life. I don’t understand how this happened.”

  Again I was met with silence. I started to say something else, but my aunt finally spoke up. “If you are calling me to ask me if I took those letters, this is a conversation you need to be having with your mother. I’ve done her job long enough, Sienna. I didn’t have children because I didn’t want the responsibility. Yet my younger sister neglected her responsibility to her own child, so I stepped in until you could stand on your own two feet. However, I’m not your mother. What happened with those letters is something I don’t have to answer for. You were staying in my house. I could do whatever I pleased. You need to call your mother and have a talk with her. It’s past time. Now, if that is all you’d like to talk about, I have some work to do.”

  There was nothing else to say. Aunt Cathy had made it very clear. “No, ma’am, that’s it.
I’ll let you get back to work,” I replied.

  “You’re a smart girl, Sienna. Use that brain of yours and make a life that kid you were determined to have deserves. Let the past be the past.” And with that, Aunt Cathy hung up the phone.

  I wasn’t surprised. Not really. She’d always been that way. Not once had she cooed over or cuddled Micah. She had treated us as if she was our warden, and now I realized that was really all she ever had been. But I’d been so desperate for someone to love us that I’d accepted whatever she was willing to give.

  I looked out the window at the Falcos’ across the street. They loved us. More important, they loved Micah. Maybe it was time I called my mother. I had to forgive her and forget the past. If she wanted to see Micah, who was I to keep her from him? He loved having family. He deserved it.

  A knock on the bedroom door stopped me from calling her. I put the phone down, walked over, and opened it up to Dewayne holding a sleeping Micah.

  “You want to change him before you put him in bed?” he asked in a whisper.

  I nodded. “Take him to his room and lay him on the bed. I’ll take it from there.”

  Dewayne did as instructed. I followed him to Micah’s room, and then he stepped out while I took my time changing Micah into his pajamas. I kept waiting for the sound of the front door closing, but it wasn’t happening. Which meant Dewayne was waiting on me. When I couldn’t do anything else, I tucked Micah in and slipped quietly from his room.

  Dewayne was standing in the living room with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at the pictures of Micah and me I had lining the mantel. One was from the day he learned to take his first steps. Another was from his third birthday. The last one was taken the day I graduated from beauty school.

  “You were just a kid here,” he said, picking up the photo of me and Micah when he’d taken his first steps.

  “I was almost eighteen,” I said. But I had been a kid.

  “You look so proud of him. You don’t look tired or bitter. Just happy.”

  “I was happy. My baby boy was walking, and I was the only person he would walk to. He was trying to follow me around the house. That’s how he started walking. Crawling wasn’t fast enough.”

  Dewayne set it back down. “Do you have extras? I’d like photos of him and you. My mom and dad would too.”

  I had taken so many photos and sent them with the missing letters. I’d also been keeping a scrapbook for my parents up until he was three and I realized they were never going to reach out and get to know Micah. So I’d stopped making it. But I still had it.

  “I have a scrapbook of his first three years that y’all can have. I can get you copies of photos from the past two years to add to it.”

  Dewayne smiled. “That would be great. I want to see him as he grows. I want to see you with him. I love watching the way he looks at you. It says a lot about you and what kind of mother you are. That kid thinks you can do no wrong. He tells my mom and dad all about the things you’ve taken him to do and the things you cook that he loves. I think Momma may love you more than she loves me these days.”

  He grinned when he said it. That was the only reason I knew he was kidding. I didn’t want to make him feel like I was trying to walk into his life and change it. I just wanted Micah to get to be a part of his life. Micah already loved him.

  “Your mother loves you,” I said, assuring him.

  He chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, she does. Don’t know why.”

  Because you’re lovable and kind. Because you make everyone around you smile. Because you have a really big heart. I remember you taking the time to make a scared little fourteen-year-old girl feel safe in high school. I didn’t say any of those things, though. I couldn’t. Not now. Not after last night.

  “You’re blushing. You thinking about last night?” he said with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

  I covered my warm cheeks with my hands, hating my tendency to blush.

  “It’s okay. I can’t seem to stop thinking about it either.”

  Oh my. The silly flip my heart always did around him turned into a wild flutter.

  “Problem is, I got to stop thinking about it. You do too. We can’t go there. We have Micah to think about, and I don’t do relationships, Sienna. It’s not me. I’m my own man. I don’t like to be tied down. I don’t even want to think of settling down. Being the man you deserve. It’s not me. You need the settling-down type. You need a Cam Dodge in your life. Not me. Us,” he said, motioning his hand between the two of us, “we’re friends. Hell, we’re family. That boy in there is what’s important, and we both love him. Let’s not mess up what he needs with something that won’t end well.”

  The fluttering stopped. It sank to my stomach and made a tight, painful knot. He was making sure I got that he wasn’t interested in something with me. Just some phone sex and he was ready to move on. That hurt way more than the “average” comment he’d said he hadn’t meant.

  “You understand, right? It ain’t that you aren’t gorgeous. You’ll make a man a really lucky sonuvabitch one day. I’m just not the man you settle down with. I’m the bad boy girls sew their wild oats with. But I’ll be the best damn uncle in the world. And if you need anything, you come to me. I’ll take care of it. Always.”

  He would do anything for me because of Micah. That was it. If it weren’t for Micah, he wouldn’t care that I was back. That I existed. I was a young single mom with a job that got me by from week to week. I didn’t have a lot to offer someone. I got that. But hearing Dewayne say I wasn’t enough hit me hard. Really hard.

  I just nodded. I couldn’t speak.

  He smiled, walked over, and pressed a kiss to my forehead like I was a kid. Then he turned and left.

  I stood there for a long time. Letting it all sink in. Tomorrow I would move on. Tomorrow I would find a way to forget Dewayne Falco. But right now I wasn’t ready.

  DEWAYNE

  By Thursday I had stayed away from Sienna’s for a week. I had texted Sienna and told her to take Micah to my parents’ Saturday morning, that I would pick him up there. I had spent the day with him, then left him with my parents minutes before Sienna got back, using my job as an excuse for running off.

  I was trying to give myself time to forget how much I wanted her. She had been so accepting of my reasons for not being able to be with her that it had been painful. I wasn’t sure what I had wanted her to do. Argue with me? Maybe. Maybe I wanted a reason to kiss her lips again. Touch her in places I’d dreamed about. Fuck. Who was I kidding? I loved being near her. Watching her move. She had this way about her. Even when she was doing something simple, I was completely fascinated by her.

  She had listened to my reasons and then nodded. That was it. Nothing else. So I’d run out of there and hadn’t been back. I couldn’t face her. Because I was pretty damn sure I’d grab her and kiss her until we both forgot what a bad idea that all was.

  I took a drink of my Coke and fought the urge to light up a cigarette. Not drinking or smoking was fucking kicking my ass. When I had turned down a beer and ordered a Coke, Rock had looked at me like I’d lost my mind. He didn’t understand. He had never laid a hand on Trisha that wasn’t a hand she wanted there.

  “Preston’s alone. That’s odd,” Rock said as he took a drink of his cold, foamy beer. I was lusting over his drink. Shit.

  The pretty boy in our group pulled out a stool and sat down with a grin. He was engaged and happy about it. Real happy. He was always smiling. Asshole.

  “Where’s Manda?” Rock asked.

  “She finally shake you loose?” I asked.

  Preston shot me an annoyed glare. “No. She’s coming. She’s bringing a friend,” he said, then grinned again.

  “Stop smiling so damn much. Hurts my eyes,” I grumbled, and took another drink of my Coke.

  “Ignore him. That Coke he is drinking is straight-up Coke. Nothing added. He’s sober and surly,” Rock explained.

  Preston’s eyebrows shot up about the same time Ro
se Mann walked up beside me, wrapped her arm around my shoulders, and gave me a good view down her shirt. I’d known Rose since high school. We all had. She’d moved into town when we were sophomores, and she immediately made the cheerleading squad. I’d fucked her back then, but only once. Hadn’t touched her since.

  Still, she had aged well. Still had perky tits and a head of brown curls. “Hello, Rose,” I said, sliding my arm around her waist and pulling her closer.

  “Hello to you, Falco,” she purred, and pressed against me. She then moved her gaze over to Preston. “You leave the fiancée behind tonight?”

  Preston shook his head. “Don’t let her too far out of my sight. She’s headed this way soon.”

  Rose rolled her eyes, then glanced over at Rock. “And where’s your little missus?”

  “Be careful, Rose. We both know his little missus will take your ass out if you attempt to flirt with her man. You know better than to get near what belongs to Trisha.”

  The whole table laughed but Rose. Back in high school Rose had made a play for Rock after Preston had fucked her and tossed her aside. Trisha had slammed her against the lockers, broken several of her nails, and taken out a handful of her hair. No one messed with Rock after that.

  “Whatever,” Rose said, then laid her hand on my chest. “I’m here for you, anyway,” she informed me. I was trying to decide if I wanted to give this a go tonight or not. I needed to do something to get Sienna out of my head. Rose was hot, but she was also a little crazy. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to mess with crazy.

  “There’s my girl,” Preston said. I swung my eyes over to see Amanda, and they collided with Sienna. Who was looking at Rose. Shit.

  “Hey, Sienna. Glad you could make it,” Preston said, getting up to pull out a stool for Sienna right beside me. “We won’t make you sit on Dewayne’s lap, seeing as it’s already full of Rose. You can have a stool. It’s more comfortable anyway.” I watched as Sienna tore her gaze from Rose and forced a smile for Preston. Then she looked at me. She was on the verge of bolting. I could see it. Preston had known who Amanda was bringing and he hadn’t told me. I was going to kick his ass.

  “It’s okay. If they start doing gross shit at the table, Rock will make them take it outside,” Preston told her, then smirked at me. Dipshit.