“Dewayne!” Micah cheered as he opened the door. He had known I was coming, and he was still excited to see me. That helped remind me why I was here.
“Hey, little man. Ready for the best burgers you’ve ever eaten?” I asked him.
He frowned. “Do they have mac ’n’ cheese on them?”
The kid was obsessed with mac ’n’ cheese. And as a matter of fact, I’d had mac ’n’ cheese added to his burger.
“Yours does,” I told him. His little eyes went wide and his grin got wider. “YAY! Momma, Dewayne got me a burger with mac ’n’ cheese on it!”
I looked up just as Sienna walked into the living room from the kitchen. She was wearing another pair of leggings and a baggy T-shirt over them. No makeup and her hair was up in a ponytail. If this was her trying not to act like she wanted to impress me, then she didn’t know me that well. Because her looking all comfortable and clean was sexy as hell.
“He has you all figured out,” Sienna said, smiling down at Micah before looking up at me.
She smiled at me shyly and had that look women got when they wanted something more. Shit! Shit! Shit! I had told her we were just friends. That what we’d done didn’t change anything.
“Um, you two can go ahead and eat. I’ve already eaten, and I’m going to go take a soak in the tub. Enjoy your visit.”
Or maybe not. She was escaping. I didn’t want her to escape. I wanted to hear her laugh and see her eyes light up. I also wanted to make her smile. And see her eat. Dammit.
“You don’t like burgers?” I asked, trying to think of a way to keep her in here.
“She loves ’em,” Micah offered.
“I got you the best,” I told her.
She looked like she wanted some but was fighting it. Was it because she couldn’t look at me? I didn’t like that. I wanted her comfortable with me.
“You didn’t eat nothing but a few pretzels with peanut butter, Momma.”
The kid was telling on her. Which was funny and was giving me leverage.
“You don’t have to eat the whole thing, just eat some. I know you don’t eat a lot.”
Micah looked up at me and frowned. “Yeah, she does! She can eat lots more than me. She normally eats a whole burger, fries, and a piece of pie.”
Then why the hell had she picked at the pizza? Was it really because of the “average” comment? I’d straightened that out already. Hell, after last night she shouldn’t have any concerns around me.
“Gotta keep those curves in place. It’d be a shame for them to disappear,” I told her.
“What curves?” Micah asked.
Her eyes went wide. She looked over at the bags in my hand and let out a sigh, then smiled. “Okay. I’ll eat. It smells delicious.”
Score.
Micah started telling me about his day at school, and I tried like hell to listen to him and not focus on his mother sitting down across from me, eating her burger like it was the best thing she’d ever put in her mouth. She’d clearly been starving, from the way she was eating. I hated that she’d picked at her pizza the other night and had been hungry. All because of my dumbass comment to my mother.
“And Mama T said I could come over to her house and stay the night again soon. We’re out of school Friday and Mama T said I could stay with her ’cause I don’t want to stay at day care. Her and Grandpa Dave’s house is more funner.”
“More fun,” Sienna corrected him.
“Yeah, more fun, and so maybe I could stay the night tomorrow night. I told Momma, but she said she’d have to talk to Mama T first.”
I had no doubt my mother would take Micah any time he wanted her to. My dad, too. When Micah had called him Grandpa Dave the other day, he’d had to leave the room because he’d teared up. My dad wasn’t a crier. Seeing him get emotional like that wasn’t something I was used to. Once again it made me feel like I owed Sienna Roy the world. She’d been alone and scared, but she’d had Dustin’s baby anyway and she’d been a damn good mom. All on her own. Micah was the healing I didn’t think my parents would ever find. Because one young girl was brave enough to be a mother without a family’s support around her.
My chest ached and something fierce settled in. I had to protect this woman. Even if I was protecting her from myself. I wanted her to have nothing but happiness in life. She deserved that. More than anyone else I knew, Sienna Roy deserved the best life had to offer.
And the best wasn’t me.
“And I bet that Momma could go on another date with Mr. Dodge.” Micah’s comment snapped me out of my thoughts.
“Mr. Dodge hasn’t asked me out again, Micah,” Sienna said to her son while setting drinks down in front of us.
“Then he’s an idiot,” I said. The dude had stepped way up out of his league with Sienna.
Sienna laughed. “I think he might have seen a side of me he wasn’t crazy about.”
She was referring to our argument in the parking lot. She’d been all fired up and gorgeous that night. I couldn’t even remember it fondly, though, because the memory of my hurting her arm was too painful. I hated myself for that.
“Then Uncle Dewayne can take you out on a date. You think Momma is pretty, don’t you?” Micah said, and I watched Sienna freeze.
A panicked look came over her face, and then she looked at me. I wasn’t sure what to say to the kid. I thought his momma was gorgeous, but I didn’t think saying that would help get him off this idea.
“Um, well, see, Uncle Dewayne is family. You don’t date family,” Sienna said to Micah, and took a seat across from him.
Micah frowned, then shrugged. Luckily, he let it go while he took a bite of his burger.
“How’s the mac ’n’ cheese burger?” I asked him, wanting to ease the sudden awkward silence.
Micah gave me a thumbs-up.
“I can’t believe you got them to put mac ’n’ cheese on the burger,” Sienna said with an amused smile.
“My boy wants a mac ’n’ cheese burger, he’s gonna get one,” I told her.
There was a flash of something in her eyes, and then she looked down at her own burger and studied it a moment before she picked it up and bit into it.
I wasn’t sure what I’d said, but she got quiet after that. Micah didn’t. He started telling me all about the Heat’s lineup this year and how they were going to beat each team. Or how LeBron James was going to beat each team. I didn’t have anything to add to the conversation because basketball had never been my sport. But I listened.
SIENNA
After I finished my burger, I excused myself and went to the safety of my bedroom while Micah took Dewayne to the living room to make him watch Return of the Jedi. It was a school night, and I knew Micah would end up falling asleep twenty minutes into the movie. He was like clockwork with his sleeping pattern. The kid required serious sleep.
I would need to be out of the bath and dressed when Dewayne left, so I could make sure Micah was tucked into bed. I sat down on the bed and reached for my phone. It was time I made a call.
I’d been putting off calling my aunt Cathy for two reasons. One, I wanted to see if she’d ever call me and check in on us. She hadn’t. Two, I was thankful for my aunt Cathy’s willingness to let me live in her house for so long, and I didn’t want to hear she’d had anything to do with the Falcos not getting my letters. But I honestly didn’t see any other explanation. I had resigned myself to the fact that my aunt Cathy had taken them.
I scrolled down the list of numbers in my phone until I found hers, and then I pressed send. When I had told Aunt Cathy I was moving, she hadn’t seemed to care either way. She was glad my mother had finally stepped up to help me, but that was about it. No warm hugs or any other emotions.
“Hello?” Aunt Cathy’s familiar voice came over the line.
“Hey, Aunt Cathy, it’s Sienna,” I said.
“Good to hear from you, Sienna. I take it life there is good?”
She was always so formal. Even with Micah she had been stern and strict. She didn’t do nonsense of any kind. She reminded me a lot of my dad.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s good here. Micah likes his new school, and I am doing well at my job. Micah, uh, met the Falcos. They didn’t know about him until they met him. Now they’re very active in his life.”
I stopped and waited for her to say something. She didn’t.
“I sent letters to them. So many letters. I wanted and needed them to know about Micah. Micah needed them. Tabby is the wonderful grandmother I knew she would be. Micah missed that for five years of his life. I don’t understand how this happened.”
Again I was met with silence. I started to say something else, but my aunt finally spoke up. “If you are calling me to ask me if I took those letters, this is a conversation you need to be having with your mother. I’ve done her job long enough, Sienna. I didn’t have children because I didn’t want the responsibility. Yet my younger sister neglected her responsibility to her own child, so I stepped in until you could stand on your own two feet. However, I’m not your mother. What happened with those letters is something I don’t have to answer for. You were staying in my house. I could do whatever I pleased. You need to call your mother and have a talk with her. It’s past time. Now, if that is all you’d like to talk about, I have some work to do.”
There was nothing else to say. Aunt Cathy had made it very clear. “No, ma’am, that’s it. I’ll let you get back to work,” I replied.
“You’re a smart girl, Sienna. Use that brain of yours and make a life that kid you were determined to have deserves. Let the past be the past.” And with that, Aunt Cathy hung up the phone.
I wasn’t surprised. Not really. She’d always been that way. Not once had she cooed over or cuddled Micah. She had treated us as if she was our warden, and now I realized that was really all she ever had been. But I’d been so desperate for someone to love us that I’d accepted whatever she was willing to give.
I looked out the window at the Falcos’ across the street. They loved us. More important, they loved Micah. Maybe it was time I called my mother. I had to forgive her and forget the past. If she wanted to see Micah, who was I to keep her from him? He loved having family. He deserved it.
A knock on the bedroom door stopped me from calling her. I put the phone down, walked over, and opened it up to Dewayne holding a sleeping Micah.
“You want to change him before you put him in bed?” he asked in a whisper.
I nodded. “Take him to his room and lay him on the bed. I’ll take it from there.”
Dewayne did as instructed. I followed him to Micah’s room, and then he stepped out while I took my time changing Micah into his pajamas. I kept waiting for the sound of the front door closing, but it wasn’t happening. Which meant Dewayne was waiting on me. When I couldn’t do anything else, I tucked Micah in and slipped quietly from his room.
Dewayne was standing in the living room with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at the pictures of Micah and me I had lining the mantel. One was from the day he learned to take his first steps. Another was from his third birthday. The last one was taken the day I graduated from beauty school.
“You were just a kid here,” he said, picking up the photo of me and Micah when he’d taken his first steps.
“I was almost eighteen,” I said. But I had been a kid.
“You look so proud of him. You don’t look tired or bitter. Just happy.”
“I was happy. My baby boy was walking, and I was the only person he would walk to. He was trying to follow me around the house. That’s how he started walking. Crawling wasn’t fast enough.”
Dewayne set it back down. “Do you have extras? I’d like photos of him and you. My mom and dad would too.”
I had taken so many photos and sent them with the missing letters. I’d also been keeping a scrapbook for my parents up until he was three and I realized they were never going to reach out and get to know Micah. So I’d stopped making it. But I still had it.
“I have a scrapbook of his first three years that y’all can have. I can get you copies of photos from the past two years to add to it.”
Dewayne smiled. “That would be great. I want to see him as he grows. I want to see you with him. I love watching the way he looks at you. It says a lot about you and what kind of mother you are. That kid thinks you can do no wrong. He tells my mom and dad all about the things you’ve taken him to do and the things you cook that he loves. I think Momma may love you more than she loves me these days.”
He grinned when he said it. That was the only reason I knew he was kidding. I didn’t want to make him feel like I was trying to walk into his life and change it. I just wanted Micah to get to be a part of his life. Micah already loved him.