Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Oh, wow. Definitely should have seen the whole ex-wife thing coming. “Yet you’re working?”
“Keeps my mind off stuff.”
I could see that. Knox didn’t seem the asshole-workaholic type the way my father had been. “Well…I think it’s great that you’re going to get him and letting him stay with you. Not all parents would. I know that had mine divorced when I was still a minor, my dad sure as shit wouldn’t have wanted the responsibility of me living with him. So it’s okay to be nervous. Sounds like the permanent-single-dad thing will be new. But your son clearly knows he can depend on you if he asked to live with you. Being a kid can suck. I hope everything works out. You’re a great dad.” I was pretty sure that covered everything.
Knox stood there staring at me. It was what I would say to a patient if they were worried about being a single parent—well, if I thought it was true, at least. Which I did with Knox. There was something about him.
I could see the wheels turning in his head, the appreciation in those strangely icy-green eyes of his. “Thank you. I think I needed to hear that from someone other than my ex-wife or my best friend. They have to say shit like that.”
“Well, I read it in a fortune cookie, so…” I teased. A laugh jumped out of Knox’s mouth, husky and deep. It obviously surprised him because he sobered quickly.
“Where did you get it? I might need to buy a few to get me through this.”
“I think you’ll do okay.” I placed my hand on his arm in support. Heat radiated from Knox’s arm to mine, with this sort of static electricity, making me pull back sharply.
“Sorry. I think I shocked you.”
“Yeah,” I replied dumbly, feeling like I was looking at him with a dopey expression I didn’t understand. “I don’t know when your flight is, but we should maybe go…?” I added when neither of us spoke.
“Shit. Yeah, let’s do this. Well, you can wait here, and I’ll get it.”
I nodded. Knox left, and a couple of minutes later he came out with a flat cart holding wood and a few other supplies. Leave it to my mom to build something like this herself rather than buy it. She was pretty badass like that.
“I’ll take it out to your car for you,” Knox said, and we went out. We had to lay the back seat down and put the supplies through the trunk and into the car, so they would fit. When we finished, he closed the trunk, paused. “Thanks again for the pep talk.”
“Looks like I’m gonna be here for a while, so if you ever need another one, you let me know.”
I smiled, put my sunglasses on, and got back in my car. As I started driving, my eyes found their way to the rearview mirror, where I saw Knox with his arms crossed, watching my car pull away.
CHAPTER FOUR
Knox
“It’ll be a big adjustment, being at a new school this late in the year,” I told Logan as we drove from the airport in Richmond back to Havenwood. We’d spent a couple of days at home with Carol and Charlotte. We’d sat down and had a conversation with Logan to make sure this was what he really wanted and trying to figure out what was going on with him, but he didn’t want to talk to us about it. It was strange having my son keep something like that from me. Even with the divorce, I’d always been close with them, and I hated that Logan was going through something he didn’t want to share with me. It made me feel like a failure as a dad. But he does want to live with me. He has to trust me, right? I tried to remind myself of what Callum had said. Why his words were the ones I recalled rather than Carol’s or Law’s, I didn’t know.
“School’s always hard, Dad. This isn’t going to be any different,” Logan finally replied, making a sharp pain stab my chest. The last thing I ever wanted was for my kids to suffer, to hurt in any way.
“Do people pick on you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but sharing helps. We can’t help you fix something if we don’t know what’s broken.” The same thing had been said to me more than once.
“Don’t. Please. It’s fine. I just…want a fresh start.”
I reached over and patted his shoulder. “Well, you’ll have that in Havenwood, and I might not like the circumstances that brought you here, but I’m glad to have you with me, Logan. I think it’ll be good for both of us. I miss you, ya know?”
He dropped his head so his chin rested on his chest. “I missed you too.” Logan turned to look at me after that. “I was thinking maybe we can start doing some other kinds of stuff together…like maybe you could teach me how to carve like you do or fix stuff. Or like…work out or something? You have that room with all the exercise stuff in it.”