Page 135 of Love Him Like Water

He looked like me. Same face, same hair. But he had his mother’s eyes.

Though, right now, one of those eyes was filled with blood—a subconjunctival hemorrhage. I’d gotten dozens of them over the years. And I knew what they came from.

Taking a fist to the eye.

Along with that, he had a busted lip, and a nasty bruise sneaking up his cheek.

“What’s this?” I asked, walking over to grab his chin, angling his head up to get a better look, checking for any worse damage.

The hardheaded little shit stared up at me, not an ounce of fear or regret.

I didn’t want my kids afraid of me.

But he was still being ballsy as fuck.

“What’d we say about fighting in this family?” I asked.

“That we don’t start ‘em. We finish ‘em.”

Well, I mean, that was what I’d told him, much to his mother’s chagrin.

“Who’d you fight with?”

“Elliott Miller,” he said, biting off the name like he wanted another piece of him still.

“Okay,” I said, nodding. “I’ll bite. What’d Elliott do?”

To that, his head whipped to the side, refusing to give me eye contact.

“Don’t think this counts as snitching,” I reminded him.

He might be only eleven, but the kid had big ambitions already. Namely, running this family one day. And as much as some part of me wanted him to go to college, get a normal, boring-ass job, and have a normal, boring-ass life, I knew that the chances were slim that he wouldn’t follow in my footsteps.

My son’s gaze cut back, cold anger still in them, despite clearly having gone a couple rounds with this Miller kid.

“He was pushing a girl around,” he said, jerking his chin up, daring me to scold him for doing… exactly what I’d raised him to do.

“She okay?” I asked.

“Skinned her knees,” he said, eyes narrowing at the idea.

He had mostly brothers.

But his baby sister, propped there on his mother’s hip, was going to be really fucking protected as she aged up, with a brother like this.

“And Elliott?” I asked.

“More than skinned knees,” he said, shrugging it off.

“More than… like I should be expecting the cops or his father at my door?”

“You could take ‘em,” he said, making a laugh burst out of me, despite myself.

“I’m sure I could,” I agreed, shaking my head.

“His dad’s not around, I don’t think.”

“No?” I asked, sucking in a breath. “Then I think you need to invite Elliott over to dinner tomorrow.”

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