Saving Rain(98)

The last time I’d been fishing, we had caught a cooler’s worth of bass. But they were all been shamefully forgotten as we planned a funeral and settled into a new normal of not having Grampa around. Gramma eventually told me to toss that old cooler in the dumpster by the school. Just to spare me the added trauma of scooping out two-week-old dead fish.

Believe me, it had been appreciated.

“Man, I think this is gonna be a bust,” I muttered, shaking my head with disappointment. “It’s still early, but—”

“Do you love my mom?”

I coughed at the sudden inquisition. “Um … well …”

“Because she says she loves you, but I don’t hear you say it back to her.”

There was a protective quality in his tone. Like the way a father would question a man’s intentions with his daughter. And that was exactly what Noah was doing—figuring out what the hell I wanted from his mom. And who could really blame him? His mom didn’t have the greatest experience with men, and he wanted to make sure I wasn’t looking to be just another asshole, using her and leaving once I had my fill—which was far from the truth.

I glanced at him, wearing an apologetic, embarrassed expression. “Can I be honest with you?”

“Sure.”

“I haven't said it back because I’m not sure I know what it feels like to love someone in the first place,” I admitted, feeling like an idiot, even as I threw the words out into the universe. “Like, I wanna be sure before I go making declarations like that, you know what I mean?”

He hummed contemplatively, nodding his head like he understood. And, hey, for all I knew, maybe he did.

“I think love is when someone is more important in your heart than you are,” he said, speaking like a guy who did in fact know more on the topic than me.

“Huh,” I said, nodding. “That makes sense. You know, you’re pretty smart.”

He shrugged nonchalantly, then asked, “So, do you think you love her?”

“Well, I mean, I would do anything for her—and you. So, I guess that makes her pretty important.”

“And do you think about her all the time? Because, like, this girl in my class—Beth … I know I love her because I think about her almost every minute of every freakin’ day.”

I turned with narrowed eyes. “Wait. You have a girlfriend?”

He sighed, a little forlorn, and shook his head. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“But you want her to be?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” He groaned exhaustedly. “Stop changing the subject. Do you think about Mom all the time?”

I swallowed. “Every minute of every freakin’ day.”

“Well, there you go.”

I shifted my jaw, looking toward the horizon as an overwhelming urge came over me to walk down to the library and burst through the doors while declaring that I had apparently fallen in love for the first time in my life and I had needed a thirteen-year-old to make me realize it.

“Wow,” I uttered, full of clarity and awe.

“You should tell her.”

“Yeah …” I nodded, my stare blank and my heart hammering. “I think you’re right.”

“Then, you should get married so that you can be my dad.”

And there it was.

That was what this was truly all about.

He had felt betrayed by the knowledge of my crimes and couldn’t stomach the idea of wanting a cold-blooded killer for a father figure. He needed the confirmation that I wasn’t in fact a homicidal psychopath. He needed to know I was a good guy—for him and his mom. He’d needed to know I loved her, that I was doing right by her, and that I would do right by him too. To fill a void he’d had since the day he had been born.

Hell, I guessed, in a way, I knew the feeling.

And that was exactly why I knew I would do my damnedest to be the guy his biological father never would be. The type of guy Noah—and his mother—deserved.

“Buddy, I don’t need to get married to be your dad. If you want me, you have me. There doesn’t have to be more to it than that.”

It was a moment. Noah glanced at me, and I, at him, and I could tell he wanted to hug me as much as I wanted to hug him. But it was in that second that his line pulled taut, and he turned away quickly as he gasped.

“I think I got one!” he shouted, his face lighting up brighter than the sun poking through the clouds.

My pride matched his as I stabbed the sand with my fishing pole before giving him my entire focus. I helped him reel in a porgy—the first of three fish we would catch that day—and I knew he was going to remember that moment for the rest of his life, just as I remembered all the moments on the water with my grandfather. And I was glad it was me who got to be a part of it.

***

“Hey!” Ray said, coming through the door after a long day at the library. “Smells like fish in here!”

Noah jumped up from beside me on the couch, our game of Mario Kart forgotten as he ran to his mom. “We caught three fish,” he announced hurriedly. “And then we walked home, and Soldier taught me how to skin and gut a fish, and we cut it up and made dinner.”

She looked over her son’s head and met my eye with a smile and every bit of the love she had for me.