Please
Tucking Egan into bed after reading his bedtime story she smiled at him. “I will be right across the hall from you. If you need me, come find me.”
“I’ll be fine, Mom. I’m six now.”
“I know you are.” She stifled her laugh at his comment.
“Mom, why are Dad and Tadgh so angry with Granddad? I thought they would be happy to have their dad here with them, but they were really angry at dinner.”
She brushed an auburn lock off his forehead and smiled gently, “families are complicated, Egan but remember when we were in the hotel with Astra?”
“Yeah.”
“You were angry with Mom, do you remember?”
“I wasn’t angry at you, Mom. I was angry I didn’t have a dad I could be with.” He thought for a second, “my dad is a bad guy like in the movies, right?”
“He has his moments.”
“Is Granddad bad too?”
“He can be.”
Please
“Yes.”
“But they have real jobs too?”
“Yes. Your father is the president of a company which makes medicines for people. Tadgh is the vice president of the company. Jerren is the financial officer.”
“What about Granddad?”
2/9
“He’s the CEO but he doesn’t spend as much time as he used to with the business.”
“I think he wants to kiss you like Uncle Tadgh and my Dad.”
She swallowed against her son’s astute observation. “Why do you say that?”
“He was holding your hand during dinner.”
“Remember when I told you how there were two girls who lived here who made me sad and bullied me and pushed me down the
stairs?”
“Yes.”
“Granddad thinks, as do I, your dad and Uncle Tadgh should have protected me better than they did. He is angry with them. for not keeping me safe and for losing Roan. He is trying to keep me safe now, even if it means keeping me safe from them.”
“But they love you!” Egan protested.
“Sometimes even the people who love you can hurt you, Egan.
Please
3/9
don’t have to forgive someone for hurting you simply because they love you. Your dad and Tadgh really want me to forgive them and love them again but I’m not ready and they keep pushing me. They aren’t respecting my boundaries and feelings. Your Granddad is here to make sure they do.”
“But Mom,” he whispered, his eyes shooting to the door as if to make sure nobody was listening in, “I think he really wants to kiss you.”
“What if he does?”
“How come so many guys want to kiss you?”
“I don’t know.” She tapped his nose, “but there is something you need to know. When you are older, there will be girls the boys want to kiss. There will be girls the boys don’t want to kiss. There will be girls who want to kiss girls and boys who want to kiss boys. There will some girls who will have more than one. boyfriend and some boys who have more than one girlfriend. If,” she swallowed as she cursed the men in this house for forcing her to have this conversation with her son when he was so young, “all the people in the relationships agree it is okay. and nobody is being sneaky, then other people don’t have the right to judge. Relationships are different and complicated but love, when it’s done right, is an exceptionally beautiful thing, Egan. As long as there is respect, understanding and clear. communication, all love is beautiful. So, if there is a girl who has more than one boyfriend, or a boy with more than one. girlfriend, as long as everyone knows their roles and agrees, it is nobody’s business but their own.”
He sighed and then wrinkled his nose, “I don’t care if you kiss them all Mom, I just don’t think you’re very pretty. I don’t know
Please
4/9
“Oh you!” she pinched his cheek at his devilry. “Naughty Egan.”
He giggled and then yawned loudly.
“Go to sleep my little love. I will see you in the morning.” She left his room and found three men lounging against the wall nearby eavesdropping. “Rude.”
“We were wondering how to answer the questions we knew he was going to put out. Noone better than the woman who knows him best on how we should be answering him.” Kiefer grinned unapologetically. “He does ask the most uncomfortable questions.”
“For the record, he’s wrong. You’re very pretty, I dare say, even beautiful.” Lorcan winked at her. He held out a key. “The lock on the inside of your room is opened with this and only you have a key.”
She took it gratefully, “thank you.”
“Gen,” Tadgh shifted, “would you like to come have a drink with us? To talk and spend time. As adults?”
“No.”
Lorcan laughed at her blunt answer and her own lips twitched at
the sound.
“Please?”
The quietly asked question made Genesis, Lorcan and Tadgh turn to look at Kiefer in disbelief. The man probably hadn’t used the word in his life.
Please
5/9
Please come down, have a drink and be with us for bit. I’d like to know more about Egan’s life up until now. I also meant what I said earlier about relocating to a new house. I want to get your thoughts on what you think is imperative for you and Egan to be happy in our home and before you say for me not to be in it, I’ll tell you I already know this request but for now it’s tabled.”
“Fine,” she took Lorcan’s extended hand, ignoring the one Kiefer held out. She didn’t miss the exasperated look on the man’s face, but she was impressed he kept his comments to himself as they descended down the stairs.
In the living room, Genesis was surprised to see the television, which was normally hidden behind a partition built into the wall out in the open. “What is this?”
“I was hoping you’d pair up your phone and share some photos of Egan with us. I also have my phone all paired up to show you some of the houses Tadgh and I were looking at earlier today. We can narrow down some picks for a viewing.” Kiefer motioned to the sofa, “if you’re not open then we can simply sit and talk.”
“No. I don’t mind talking about Egan. He is my favorite subject in the world.”
She found herself nestled between Lorcan and Tadgh while Kiefer took a seat in a nearby wingback chair. She passed her cell phone to Tadgh and let him sync it to the television screen. When he passed it back, he let his fingers trail over her hand, and she frowned at him.
She pulled up some photos of Egan when he was little. “This was the day he was born.”
Please
“Hey.”
6/9
“Look at him!” Lorcan was laughing at Genesis’s open–mouthed protest. “He looks like a wrinkled orange ball. He was all hair!”
“He didn’t have freckles when he was born.” Tadgh commented. curiously.
She shook her head, “no. He started getting them around ten or eleven months old. His hair was bright red.” She elbowed Lorcan, “he wasn’t ugly.”
“He sure as fuck was,” Lorcan teased her. “Look at him!”
“He’s beautiful,” Kiefer’s voice cut into the teasing, somber and sad. “Stunning,” his fingers inched into the air as if he wanted to touch the large screen. “Was he a good baby?”
“You mean did he eat every two hours without fail for four months straight nearly destroying my nipples in the process? Sure. Then suddenly at the four–month mark, he started sleeping in six hour stretches, except it was during the day and not at night. He slept all freaking day long like the dead. There were times I would poke him to see if he was still breathing, he was out. He was happy though. He was smiling from the moment he woke up until he got hungry,” she found a toothy smile of him at six months with his one baby tooth.
“He’s beautiful Gen,” Kiefer shot her a sideways glance. “Holy shit he is a gorgeous boy.”
“He is.” She met his eyes and nodded.
“He’s a smart kid too,” Tadgh commented.
Please
7/9
She pulled up a video of her and Egan skating when he was barely three and hit play. “He had all this energy I couldn’t contain. He would be tearing through everything and was chatting my car off all the time and so I’d take him skating, sledding, to the parks and playgrounds in order to wear him out so he’d sleep.”
“Astra isn’t in any of these photos,” Kiefer questioned. “Most of these are selfies with a selfie stick.”
“She worked a lot, but she did come with us when she could.”
“Did you live together?”
“No. She lived close to us but not with us. She did stay with us frequently and would have sleepovers, but she didn’t live with us.”
“She was jealous of him.” Kiefer commented his opinion.
“I never thought so until this week. She always made me feel she loved him almost as much as I did but telling me I should leave him with you and walk away told me I was very wrong.”
She scrolled through and found photos and videos and took her time going through them all, highlighting the sweet boy.
Lorcan took a breath and shook his head, “you’ve done an incredible job with him, Genesis. You’re an amazing mother.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you want more children someday? To give him a sibling?”
Please
“Until recently.” Lorcan finished her sentence.
“Kiefer made a comment the other day in the car suggesting I could have Tadgh’s baby, and how Kiefer would make a wonderful uncle.”
“You want to have my baby, Gen?” Tadgh teased her.
8/9
“No.” she denied it. “I’m not thinking of either of you as a father of my next child. I’m simply saying I never considered having another baby until Kiefer mentioned it.” She noted Lorcan was quiet. “Why?”
“Simply curious, love.” He winked at her.
Kiefer cleared his throat, “would you mind sending me some of those photos, Gen?”
“Sure. I can do that.” She nodded.
“Do you want to see the houses we’ve narrowed down for viewing tomorrow?” Kiefer held his own phone up. When she nodded, he put up the first link on the screen.
“Damn it, Kiefer, it’s twice the size of this one.”
“Yeah, well if Dad is going to be hanging around more, we’ll need the space lest we end up in fist fights on a daily basis. There’s also already a garden house on the lot if you wish to live outside of the main house but,” Kiefer didn’t look away from the hope in her eyes, “Egan is to stay in the main house for protection since he’ll be a target and you will have to keep two men in your house always for your protection, preferably Tadgh or Jerren being one of them.”
Please
9/9
“I think the point of giving you your own place to live, Genesis is because you don’t want to live with me.” Kiefer said uncomfortably. “Let’s take a look through the houses and you can think of which ones you like best for us to check out.”
She nodded and wanted to kick her own ass for the ache in her chest at his words. It felt like he was giving up on her and while it was what she wanted, it bothered her.
3
