Total pages in book: 178
Estimated words: 170884 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170884 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
“When I dream of Daddy, it feels so real.” Inhaling deeply, shakily, I spoke out on an exhale, “It feels so real that sometimes I don’t want to wake up from such a beautiful dream.” I closed my eyes to stress my next words, gripping his forearms. “But it’s just a dream, honey.” I pulled him to me once again and snaked my arms around him. “It’s not real.”
A.J. frowned. “No, Mummy.” He tried to shake his head against my chest. “It’s real. Really real.”
No, it isn’t. He’s gone.
“Baby.” My heart ached as much as the spoken words. “Daddy’s gone.”
“He isn’t,” he said adamantly in only the way a five-year-old could.
I bit my lip to stop myself from releasing a pained cry. Instead, I whispered, “Yes.”
But A.J. wasn’t having it. He took a step back from me, and I felt the loss immediately. The full force of his glare hit me. “No.”
Goddammit.
Didn’t he know how much he was hurting me?
Twitch was gone.
And he was never coming back.
But my son was so important, so precious to me, that I caved, and as I did, a tear trailed my cheek. “Okay, baby.”
A look of vindication crossed him, and when he threw himself into my arms, I held my baby and wept silently.
Because my son was mourning the father he never had. And whichever way he chose to cope with that was okay with me.
Even if it meant hurting me in the process.
Chapter One
Twitch
In the shadow of night, I moved slowly, quietly, and when the house came into view, I stalled. The lights were still on. I stood by the gum tree on the street corner and waited.
Looking down at my wrist, I checked my watch in the moonlight and counted the seconds. When the clock struck eleven, I peered up at the house and it was suddenly awash with darkness. It was like clockwork. Every night at eleven p.m., Lexi went to bed, but not before checking on A.J.
A small smile pulled at my lips when the lamp in my son’s room illuminated the window.
And there it was.
See?
Clockwork. Same thing, day in, day out.
A moment passed and the window dimmed, and that was my cue.
With my hands in my pockets of my hoodie, I moved gracefully, silently, and when I reached the window, I put my hands to the top of the wooden frame and pushed. It rattled as it opened. I pulled out the fly screen and placed it on the ground before climbing in. The second my foot hit the floor of his bedroom, I heard plastic cracking.
I clicked my tongue, and muttered, “Fuck.” When the little man in the bed lifted his head and blinked at me sleepily, I uttered quietly, “I thought I told you to clean this shit up.”
He rubbed at his eyes, then mumbled, “I forgot.”
“You forgot.” I chuckled under my breath. “Sure you did.”
The little smirk pulling at his lips told he was lying. My son might’ve gotten my looks, but he was his mother through and through. Kind and honest and good.
I glanced around the room, at the floor, before sighing at the mess, and stepped silently towards the bookshelf. “What’s your flavor, boy?”
“Green Eggs and Ham,” he said immediately.
My lips puckered into a small scowl. “Again?”
“Again.” He nodded, sitting up in bed.
Another sigh was pulled from me, but it was exaggerated. I really didn’t give a fuck what he wanted me to read to him. I would do it, reading the same book over and over again, if it meant I got to spend some time with my boy. Because what little time I got with him was something I cherished. It was precious, and I’d missed him his whole life. So what little I got of him, I would deal with.
Book in hand, I went to him. “Scoot over.” When he did, I sat on the edge of the bed, lying back against the timber headboard, and I put my arm around him and held the book up.
Without hesitation, he leaned his sleepy head into my chest. I blinked down at him as he let out a little yawn, and I died on the inside.
I fucking died.
Never had a child been so loved as my son. His trust was not something I deserved, but I would take it because it was habit of mine—taking things that didn’t belong to me. Claiming them as my own.
As I started to read in low tones, I recognized I didn’t even need the book anymore. I’d read it so many times I knew the damned thing by heart. But A.J. seemed to like the pictures, so I held the book up and let him turn the pages when needed, watching him smile at the goofy-looking drawings, smiling right along with him.
I never understood what people meant when they said it was the little things.