Page 51 of Dirty Puck

She launched into motion using her mothering superpowers. One second she was under me, wrecked and wanting, and the next she was shoving me off, yanking her sleep shirt over her head, and sprinting across the room as if her life depended on it. All to keep her kid from seeing something he shouldn’t.

It might’ve been funny—if I wasn’t left sitting there, rock hard and holding myself, with no relief in sight.

When Benny opened the door, she glanced over her shoulder at me, eyes apologetic, mouth twitching with an unvocalized to laugh. Then she turned back to him and held her arms out wide.

“How’s my boy?” she asked, scooping him up and smothering his face with kisses as she carried him out of the room like it was just another Tuesday.

And I couldn’t even be mad. She had a kid. A life. And that moment right there? That was the sweetest thing I’d ever seen.

Shewas sweet.

Yeah. I’d seriously lucked out.

Sighing, I ran both hands down my face and tucked myself back into my shorts, adjusting with a wince. That ship had sailed. As if to drive it home, her phone alarm started blaring. I leaned over and shut it off for her.

No relief. No finish. Just one hell of a reminder that this woman, this life—complicated or not—was worth every remaining second I got to be a part of it.

Speaking of… Family time. Benny had school this morning, Bree had work, and I had practice, along with a few photo shoots for Copperheads PR.

When I walked out of the bedroom, she and Benny watched some little kid show on the television. His eyes actually brightened when he saw me. That felt different, better, than I thought it would.

“Hey, bud,” I said, making my way over to him and crouching down to his level. He opened his arms for a hug. It was brief, but he liked me enough to hug me. That was huge. “What do you want for breakfast?” I asked.

“He usually gets his apples and cinnamon oatmeal. It’s in the freezer. I meal prep to save us time. Then he gets the dinosaur cookies to dunk in the oatmeal.”

“Got it,” I replied. “What about you?”

“If I eat, it’s something quick and easy I can grab as I head out the door.”

Not anymore.

“I’ll sort out breakfast while you get him ready.” Then I tugged her chin up to kiss her.

I pulled Benny’s oatmeal from the freezer, setting it on the counter to let the glass bowl come up to temperature before I nuked it. For us, I grabbed the bagels from the fridge, popped them in the toaster, and pulled out a couple of eggs, cooking them over-easy—just the way we liked them—in the fry pan with olive oil.

Once the eggs were done, I set them aside and heated Benny’s oatmeal while I assembled our breakfast. An egg went on each toasted bagel half, followed by a light sprinkle of grated Parmesan. I sliced up a few tomatoes, added them on top, and finished it all with a handful of her mixed greens. Simple, but satisfying.

No restaurant was trying to lure me away from hockey, but I was pretty proud of the result.

Finally, I took Benny’s food out of the microwave, setting that at the table along with a small saucer of dinosaur cookies. She didn’t tell me what he liked to drink. Bree and I had coffee. I’d started it brewing while cooking the eggs.

“Breakfast,” I called out to them. She walked into the kitchen holding his hand.

“You did all this? For us?”

“An extra pair of hands makes for light work.”

“That sounds like something your mother probably told you.”

I smiled. “She did.” As Bree helped Benny into his chair, I walked two steaming mugs over to the table. “What does Benny drink?”

“Juice box on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.”

She stirred his oatmeal for him and the kid made his cookies walk across the surface of his food. He was a trip. I’d never imagined myself liking a kid who wasn’t mine, but Benny was different. Despite not talking, he still used his body language to express himself in ways that as his mom, Bree could decipher, and she’d started sharing those things with me, so now I saw them too. I popped the straw through the hole in the top of the box and set it down next to his plate. He smiled at me for just a second, eyes drifting to the left, then went back to playing and eating.

“This is so good,” Bree said, swallowing down her first bite.

“Just eggs.”

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