Page 66 of Bad Medicine
Theideaofparenthoodwas a strange one for me.
Mostly because I’d never had any myself.
None that I remembered, anyway. I had been turned over to the state at the age of four when my mother died of a drug overdose and the police found me two days later, sitting on the living room floor next to her dead body. I mean, I wasn’t sure how long she had actually been dead, but that’s what the report said when I’d finally had Lexi dig it out of the police archives.
Either way, no one wanted the kid of a drug addict for their own. Who knew what kind of shit I’d been through, right? Maybe I was just as damaged as she’d been. Maybe worse.
No, anyone who wanted to adopt seemed to want only pure, well-bred infants, not foster care rejects with unknown darkness in their pasts. I’d been bounced to more group homes and foster families than I’d ever care to remember, none of them being any better than the last.
It wasn’t until I met Enzo—and through him, his mom, Lita—that I began to understand just what a real parent should look like.
A parent wasn’t someone who yelled at you for being hungry, or smacked you around when you made noise.
They were supposed to be the one who loved you unconditionally, no matter how badly you screwed up, no matter what it cost them personally.
They were supposed to support and encourage you, giving you a safe place to try new things and bolster you when you thought about quitting.
And most of all, they were supposed to protect you from all the things that could harm you in the world.
Even if that thing was your own fucking father.
“You wanna come in?”
I stared out the windshield of the Chevelle, looking at the little porch where Mia’s front door rested, nestled beside the other half of the duplex under the sagging roof. Things were starting to fall into place in my head. Things like the reason Mia lived in a crappy duplex in an even crappier neighborhood, and why she took the bus when she really should have had a car.
How did she get her groceries? How did she take her kid to school?
I sat there, in silence, realizing the answer to all my questions really came down to just one thing: she was doing it all alone.
I knew single moms were badasses; Lita had proved that to me time and time again. But even though Enzo’s dad had been more absent than not, there was never a real shortage of funds. It had never really occurred to me before that not all single parents had the luxury of child support to back them up. They didn’t have someone to trade off responsibilities with when they were tired or overwhelmed, and they sure as fuck didn’t have the emotional support when it came to the decisions regarding your kid.
Mia was more than a mom to her boy; she was a mom and a dad all in one, and in that moment, I respected the shit outta her for it.
“Rocco? I asked if you wanted to—”
“Yeah,” I said gruffly, yanking open my door and getting out in a rush. “Where’s your kid?” I asked, wanting to make up for my shit-tastic response to meeting him three weeks ago. “Is he in bed or something?”
“Um,” Mia said cautiously, climbing the stairs to the house. “He’s next door with my neighbor, Linny. He can stay there if you don’t want—”
“No,” I cut in, not wanting her son to think he wasn’t wanted. “Get him. I’d like to meet him properly, if that’s alright with you?”
Because there was no denying it now; Mia was gonna be mine.
And that meant Jasper was part of the deal.
Mia stared at me, her face surprised, before she nodded and moved over to the second door, knocking lightly. I stood back, my heart in my throat as I waited for the other man in her life to make an appearance.
Because, shit. What if he didn’t like me? Weren’t kids super protective of their moms in situations like this? I didn’t know, but all the movies I’d ever seen had showed nothin’ but drama between the kid and the prospective boyfriend, and fuck if we didn't have enough drama on our hands already.
The door finally opened, and out rushed a little ball of blond hair and energy, wrapping himself around Mia’s legs like a hyperactive octopus.
“Mommy! I missed you! Linny let me watch three episodes of my show after dinner, but she said dat I had to have a bath at home instead. And I colored lots of pictures today. I even did one of Gertrude, but Linny asked if she could keep it and hang it on her fridge. Is dat okay? Can she keep it on her fridge?”
Christ, did he even stop and take a breath?
But Mia took it all in a stride, lowering to her knees and smiling warmly as she listened to every rapid-fire word Jasper shot her way. She must have responded to him, because his little face lit up in a grin so wide I could see all his tiny teeth.
Standing there, watching them together, a warm tingling started to build behind my ribs. Lifting my hand, I rubbed at the spot, trying to dispel it, but it didn’t help. The feeling only grew with each word they shared, each smile they exchanged, and suddenly I knew, without a single doubt, that this was where I was meant to be.
