“I could buy him a game?”
“They’re so expensive though.”
Shane flinches. “Well, maybe I could—”
“Shane.” I reach for his hand, but at the last minute, I pull away. “Just relax. All you have to do is talk to him and maybe play some Nintendo with him. He’s an easy kid. He’ll like you.”
He smiles sheepishly. “Okay. Sorry. This is just really important to me.”
“I know. But trust me—it will be fine.”
Josh is an easy kid, and I’m sure he’ll like Shane. The hard part is going to be explaining to him who this man really is, and why we have kept it from him for so long. How much of the truth can we tell him? I don’t want to lie to him, but he’s ten years old. I don’t know if he can handle the entire truth.
I guess we’ll play it by ear.
Chapter 45
After we get back to my house, the first thing Shane wants to do is take a shower. When I give him the go-ahead, he makes a beeline for the upstairs bathroom, and then he’s in there for over half an hour. He comes out looking like he just spent the day at a spa.
“That was the best shower I’ve had in ten years,” he announces. “I got to make the water any temperature I wanted. I could spend as long as I wanted in there. And I wasn’t naked next to five other guys.”
“Sounds great,” I laugh.
He looks down at his watch. “So the bus should be here soon, right?”
“Pretty soon.” I took the day off from work and I gave Margie the afternoon off as well. “It probably will come in the next ten minutes.”
“Okay…” He rakes a shaky hand through his damp hair, then looks down at his blue jeans. “Do you think what I’m wearing is okay?”
He is so adorably nervous. I walk over to him and place my hands on his shoulders. It’s the first time I have touched him since he walked out of the prison, but it feels right. “Don’t be nervous. He’s going to like you. I promise.”
“How do you know?”
“Because.” I grin at him. “You’re a likable guy.”
Our eyes meet, and one corner of his lips quirks up. Now that he’s cleaned up and is out of his prison jumpsuit, he looks so different. I had forgotten quite how sexy Shane could be. And I have to admit, he has upped his game in the last ten years. Even the scar on his forehead that I stitched up myself is sexy.
It also occurs to me he has not been with a woman in over a decade. And tonight, he’ll be sleeping in the bedroom right next to mine.
The quiet moment between us is interrupted by the sound of the doorbell ringing. It’s Josh. The school bus has arrived.
Shane leaps away from me, staring at the door while tugging at his shirt collar. I rush over and unlock the door, and there is Josh, standing at the entrance with his backpack slung over one shoulder like this is any ordinary day, and not the day he’s about to meet his father for the first time.
“Hi, Mom,” he says. “I’m hungry.”
“Josh.” I glance back at Shane, who is wringing his hands together. “We have a visitor here. This is Shane.”
“Hi, Josh,” Shane says. “It’s really nice to meet you.”
Josh ignores Shane and drops his backpack right in the center of the foyer. He’s supposed to put it on the side, but he always manages to put it in the exact right spot for somebody to trip over. “I didn’t even have lunch,” he whines. “They had ravioli for lunch, and they only gave me like five ravioli. Five, Mom!”