Page 81 of Saving the Last Heir
Jackson walked over and knelt beside the thirteen-year-old.
“Do I look like a guy you’d like to be one day?”
Jackson spoke with no hubris or conceit. It was nothing but a simple question that he obviously wanted a direct answer to.
Mikey looked at Jackson’s clothes, styled hair, and clean-shaven face. I wasn’t sure if he knew how expensive Jackson’s watch was, but his eyes flicked across it as well. Finally, Mikey nodded reluctantly.
“Why?” Jackson asked, still looking at the boy with a calm gentleness that made me wonder where he’d learned to deal with children.
“You’re cool, uh, and you…I don’t know, you look rich, I guess,” Mikey said.
Mariposa snorted a laugh and clamped her hands to her mouth. Jackson smiled sadly.
“Money doesn’t make a man,” Jackson said. “It’s what he does to help people with it. Knowledge doesn’t make a man, it’s how he uses it to help others. I hate to say it, but school is the easiest part of your life. I know that’s hard to hear at your age. Rightnow, school probably looks like the worst and most stressful thing you can do, but it also teaches you how to be a grownup. If you let it, it will help you become a man.” Jackson tapped the boy on the chest. “Youcan be a man, but you can’t quit. Not the money part, that’s silly, and it’s something that can be taken away in a second, but what’s in here”—he tapped his own chest—“canneverbe taken away. You build that? Then you’re someone the world will respect, someone women want to be around, and someone men want to emulate, and children will trust.Thatis what being a man is, and that starts now—with school, with grades, with being on time, sticking it out, and not giving up. Can you do that?”
Mikey gazed at Jackson with an almost dumbfounded expression on his face, as if the man had given him the keys to the universe, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready for it.
“Well?” Jackson prodded after a few seconds.
“Uh, yeah,” Mikey said, nodding slowly.
“Yeah, what?” Jackson said, a real smile returning to his lips.
“Yeah, I want to be a man like that.”
“Good,” Jackson said as he ruffled the kid’s hair. “Now get your ass to school for the rest of the day. You can make your last couple of classes if you hurry.”
“Yes, sir,” Mikey said. He hopped to his feet and ran for the door. “See you later, Shyanne.”
I watched him go, blinking rapidly, trying to figure out what had happened. Finally, I turned back to Jackson, who was still on the floor helping Mariposa with her math homework.
“Yup,” he said, pointing at her paper. “If this part is right, then what does X equal?”
Warmth surged through my chest as I watched him with her. I’dneverseen or met a man like this before. One so at ease with both hard and burly men, rich and powerful men, women of all types,andchildren. He was like a dream. Literally, like he’d walked straight out of my dreams and into the real world. Oh, and he was a magical shapeshifting dragon man. That was pretty important.
He glanced up at me with those striking eyes—the one pupil forever dilated into a large black pool that I could almost fall into. He grinned at me, then turned to Mariposa.
“You got the rest of this?” he asked.
She nodded. “I think so. You helped a lot. Thanks.”
He rose from the floor and dusted off his pants.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I came by to see you, but you weren’t back yet. They were clowning around in here, so I got them onto homework.”
“Thanks,” I said, then swept a hand to the door where Mikey had exited. “You were great with him. He really needs that. His parents are…” I trailed off and shrugged sadly. “Well, you heard what they told him.”
“I did,” Jackson said. “Hopefully what I said will sink in.”
“I think itmight.” I laughed. “Did you see his freaking face? He was looking at you like you were Thor or Hercules walking down from the clouds to give him the meaning of life.”
“Oh, fuck off.” Jackson laughed and nudged me playfully. “No way. I just told him what I believe.”
“It’s true,” I said, pushing him back.
We walked through the shop, checking in on the guys as they worked. At one point, while Brent was replacing a cooling system on a Suburban, we asked if he needed any help.
“Yeah, why don’t we get Mister Boulder Shoulders there to hold this radiator in place for me,” Brent said, gesturing to Jackson.
