7. River

SEVEN

RIVER

"Dad, Dad, over here! Over here!" Nolan was jumping in the air, hands thrown high, his flop of dark brown curls bouncing around his adorable head. Skin pale with a dusting of freckles all over his chubby cheeks.

We were in the fenced-in backyard that was a huge expanse of green grass. Towering trees sprouted up throughout, their branches stretching wide to offer shade.

I'd put in a ton of shit for Nolan to play on, a fort, a jungle gym, and slides, but I'd left a wide section in the middle to ensure he had plenty of space to run.

I cocked back the small football, playing like I didn't know whether to throw the pass to him or to Otto.

Otto was currently acting the fool, dancing around Nolan in a bogus bid to block him, jumping right in front of the kid and waving his meaty arms in the sky. "Pass it to me. Pass it to me."

Nolan giggled like mad, and he gave Otto a big shove to get the brute out of his way. "No way, Uncle Otto! It's my turn, and I'm way more faster than you! Tell him how really fast I am, Dad!"

"Hold up. Did you just have the audacity to call me slow?" Otto rasped out the faked offense, pressing a tatted hand to his massive chest. "I'll show you just how fast I am. You'd better watch out."

A riot of giggles poured out of Nolan as he took off running, knowing Otto was about to give chase, and immediately my little dude was coming my way, tiny feet clad in his favorite blue cowboy boots eating up the lawn.

Mismatched tee and shorts since he'd been insisting on picking his own clothes for the last year.

Face pure, uncompromised bliss, a beaming fuckin' light that struck me right smack in the chest.

"Dad, save me! Uncle Otto is a monster and is going to eat me!"

Still nearly dropped me to my knees every time he called me that. Every time I looked at him, I wondered how I'd managed to steal this little bit of joy.

A thief who'd been given a gift.

The second Nolan got within reach, I scooped him up and swung him onto my side as I tossed the ball to him with my other hand. He caught it like he was making the pass of the century, hugging it to his chest and kicking his feet.

"Run, Daddy-O, run!" he shouted. "Leave him in the dust!"

Otto was still coming for us, lumbering along, so I turned on my heel and went sailing for the line of metal toy tractors Nolan had set up to indicate the end zone.

The second we crossed it, Nolan tossed his hands high again, this time with the ball over his head. "Touchdown!"

"Oh, man," Otto whined from five feet behind because I had, in fact, left his ass in the dust.

Nolan shook his head with a shrug of his shoulder, voice completely serious. "Guess you shoulda been faster, Uncle. Now you lose."

In defeat, Otto dropped to his knees, moaning toward the endless expanse of blue sky, and a chuckle was rolling out of me as I shook my head at the theatrics always spilling from my closest friend.

"Yeah, sucker, guess you shoulda been faster," I mimicked, laying it on thick .

"You wound me, River. Wound the hell outta me." He acted like he was being stabbed in the chest.

Nolan was completely aghast. "We would never hurt you, Uncle, because we really love you. Right, Dad?"

The kid looked at me for affirmation. Making sure he got in my line of sight so he could read my eyes.

My chuckle turned soft, and I ruffled my fingers through his hair as I set him onto his feet. "That's right."

"We help rather than hurt," Nolan stated, and he reached out a hand to Otto. "So, that means I gotta help you right up, Uncle."

Otto played it up as he let Nolan struggle and grunt and dig in his heels to help him onto his feet, and when Nolan gave him a giant tug, he popped all the way up. He dragged the back of his hand over his forehead like it was the hardest thing the two of them had ever done.

"Whew. You are a strong one, aren't you, young lad?"

"As strong as my dad," Nolan said with an emphatic nod. "Check 'em out."

The kid lifted both arms out to the side, flexing with all his might.

"Woo wee, I won't be tussling with you any time soon," Otto drew out with a whistle as he pinched Nolan's tiny muscles.

"You better not!" Nolan was all dimpled grins. "That would be the biggest mistake you ever had."

Otto shared a knowing look with me, his devotion to this kid nearly as fierce as mine.

"All right, Little Dude, go get your stuff, it's time to get going," I told him, knowing I was going to break a little of his heart. "I have an appointment with a client in an hour."

His shoulders sagged. "Oh, man, do we really have to go?"

"Yup."

"But I hate it at Miss Liberty's house." He whined right through what I knew was a flagrant lie.

I cocked a brow. "You just told me yesterday when I picked you up that you weren't ready to leave."

Then he'd hugged the crap out of his babysitter and told her he loved her. Pretty sure there wasn't any hate about it .

"But I'm having more fun here today."

"Doesn't change the fact that I have to work, so you're going to have to go."

Huffing, Nolan scuffed the sole of his little boot against the grass, grumbling, "Fine," before he went stomping across the lawn and up the three super wide steps that led to the backside of the elevated wraparound porch. He slammed the door shut behind him when he went inside.

Otto laughed under his breath as he watched him go. "Looks like Little Dude has been hanging out with your surly ass for too long."

"Fuck you, man," I said, shaking my head, knowing even though Otto was busting my balls the way he loved to do, there was a shit-ton of validity to it.

Never in my life had I thought I'd be raising a kid.

Not after I'd taken care of Raven, terrified I was failing at every turn. Not after I'd seen the atrocities of this world. Not after I'd become who I had.

But I'd had little choice in the matter, and there'd been nothing I could do but stand up and do right by the little boy. Pray to fuck that I didn't mess him up.

Wanted to be the hope in his life when that hope had nearly run out.

Thought of it had regret obliterating my heart, nearly knocking me to my damned knees as talons dug into the gnarled, deformed organ inside my chest.

Otto clapped me on the shoulder like he'd read every thought that had just tromped through my mind. "You're too goddamn hard on yourself, River. Lighten the fuck up."

I grunted at him, and he grinned.

Otto was a fucking beast. Maybe an inch shorter than me and just as thick. Brown hair a bit on the shaggy side, scruff growing all over his face. Rough as fuck because none of us had come out of our pasts unscathed.

Loved the asshole to pieces, but most of the time, I wondered how the hell it was possible he was constantly sporting those easy smiles with the lot we'd been given.

With the pact we lived out.

Probably since the dude dipped his dirty dick in nearly everything that walked, fucking away all the strain and stress and grief. Never letting the weight of this sordid world hold him down.

Case in point, he squeezed my shoulder, mischief in his prodding voice when he said, "Seems to me, someone needs to get laid. Sink your fingers into some delicious cherry pie because you've been going hungry for too long."

That was all it took for my mind to go racing, traipsing right back to the girl who'd been splayed out in my chair last week. Woman clinging onto my thoughts and filtering into my dreams.

His grin widened like he thought he'd tapped directly into the problem.

He wouldn't be wrong.

"Things are slow right now, brother. Not a thing to be spun up about," he said.

Not a thing to be spun up about? I got his perspective on some level because his position was different than mine.

He got to be the white knight, while I succumbed to the call of the avenger. Not that I begrudged him.

Each of us fell into the pieces of the puzzle we'd been fated to match.

"Why don't you take this time to lay low and enjoy the more pleasurable things in life?" He didn't attempt to hide the suggestion. "You can bet your ass that I will be."

I was about to tell him he knew better than to get too comfy when a loud thunk then a crash reverberated from inside the house.

My insides seized for the flash of a second, and I shared a disturbed look with Otto in that beat, before I was sprinting across the lawn, taking the three steps in one, and ripping through the door.

That was just as a high-pitched cry reached my ears, and I was tearing through the living room toward where Nolan was in a ball at the base of the stairs .

Stairs that were hard wood. Stairs that I was constantly telling him not to run on because he was going to fall and get hurt.

"Nolan!" I wheezed, my heart a fucking mallet bashing against my ribs as I flew around the couch and into the foyer, dropping to my knees at his side just as he was rolling over and sitting up.

I tried not to let the clump of fear tear out of my lungs at the sight of the blood gushing from his mouth. No question, it would only wind him up more.

But fuck.

I wasn't equipped for this shit.

Didn't know how to handle it without freaking the fuck out.

Nolan handled the "freaking out" part for me, a wail coming out of him when he realized he was bleeding. "I fink I bit the big one, Dad!"

"It's okay, buddy, it's okay."

My gaze raced to take stock, muttering the whole time, "You're okay, Nolan. I've got you. You're okay. You're okay."

Fuck, let him be okay.

He looked at me with those giant blue eyes, tears streaming as thick as the blood.

"Can you tell me where you hurt?" I asked, trying to keep calm while my guts were tied in knots of dread. I ran my palm gently over the top of his head and down the back, praying to fuck there weren't any injuries there.

"My mouf ." He poked his bottom lip out at me, giving me a glimpse of where it was split, plus a gaping hole where one of his bottom teeth was missing.

Ah shit.

"You think you can open up so I can see what's going on in there?"

He did, tipping his head back and making an ahhh sound like he was at the dentist.

Yup, one of his gapped baby teeth was missing, but I was breathing out the smallest bit of relief when I couldn't see any other injuries.

"Looks like you knocked a tooth clean out," I told him, letting a little tease slide into it, hoping to assuage him .

Only another wail tore out of him when I said it, and he smacked a hand over his mouth in blatant horror. "But I gotta eat, Dad."

Otto was behind me, trying to hide his chuckle. "Don't worry, Little Dude. You can't chew, I'll buy you all the milkshakes you want."

Nolan perked right up at that, grinning with all that blood gushing down his chin. "I like that idea!"

I cut Otto a look before I returned my attention to Nolan. "Do you hurt anywhere else?"

He flopped his arms out and wiggled his legs. "Nope. Not one little bit."

Relief pummeled me, and I murmured, "That's good, that's good."

I carefully scooped him into my arms and carried him into the kitchen where, one-handed, I filled a zippy bag with ice, wrapped it in a hand towel, and pressed it to his mouth since Otto had gone into the guest bathroom to get a rag and was currently wiping up blood from the floor.

"You hold that right there, yeah?" I told Nolan.

"I got it, Daddy-O. Don't you worry one bit," he mumbled around the cloth, now the one consoling me.

"Going to get him checked out just in case. Lock up, would you?" I called to Otto.

He gave me a salute. "Sure thing, boss. Text me and give me an update."

"Yup," I told him, then I was storming down the hallway and out the garage door and buckling Nolan into the backseat of my SUV.

"Where we goin', Dad?" he asked, the tears already melted away.

"Think we should have the doc take a look at that."