Page 27 of Hold on Tight

Oh. Maybe that twinge of disappointment meant hehadwanted to come back tomorrow. The truth was, he’d loved his time with Sam. Figuring out who he was, helping him find his way, teaching him how to give his all or lose graciously. It had made Jake feelalive. All-the-way alive, and like maybe, maybe there was a reason to be glad he was.

“I want Jake.” Sam screwed up his face, preparing for a tantrum. Jake felt an odd twinge of camaraderie.

“You’ll like this sitter.”

“Who is it?” Sam demanded, through a mouthful of pizza.

“Chew with your mouth closed, please. She’s Penny’s friend’s sister.”

“Is she a teenager?” Sam looked intrigued.

“No. She’s a grown-up.”

“I don’twanther,” Sam insisted. “I wantJake.”

Okay. Sam was fighting for him. Forhim. Even if he didn’t understand what he was fighting for, or why, Jake couldn’t hang him out to dry.

Sam wasn’t looking in Jake’s direction. Jake mouthed over his son’s head,I could do it.

She hesitated.Are you sure?

Sam’s head swiveled back and forth between them, just short ofExorcist-child. “Jake, Jake, are you gonna do it?”

“Until you find someone else,” Jake told Mira. “I mean, no point in having all these changes, right? You’ll find someone permanent in a couple of days.”

“Totally. I’m sure I can find someone. But I don’t want you to feel like you’re on the hook indefinitely. We could say you’ll do the rest of the week, and then I’ll figure something out for after that.”

Short term. That was good. Because he wanted to be useful to them, but he had to draw the line somewhere. Keep things casual. This was too crazy of a situation to let the lines get all blurry and weird. Sam didn’t even know who he was. And he probably should get himself out of the way of temptation before he did something he’d live to regret.

Mira was relieved, he could tell. But uneasy, too. She had a nervous habit of running her thumb across her other four fingernails. He’d seen her do it in the physical therapist’s office. Well, if she was nervous about this whole setup, that made two of them.

He grabbed another slice of pizza. That was probably more food than he’d eaten the rest of the week combined.

“So Jake’s going to come tomorrow?”

He looked to Mira, who nodded. “Yeah,” Jake told Sam.

“Awesome! We can race again!”

“You guys raced?” Mira’s eyes narrowed.

Jake looked over at Sam, who appeared to be sinking in his chair. “It was Jake’s idea,” Sam said hastily.

Jake would give him a lecture tomorrow on not selling out your fellow soldiers. In the meantime, fine, he was the grown-up here. He’d take the blame. “Yes, we did.”

Mira’s jaw hardened. “Sam. Are you done?”

Sam had begun tearing his uneaten pizza crust into tiny pieces. He nodded.

“Clear your place and go get in your pajamas, brush your teeth, and get in bed. You remember the rule?”

“If I stay there, you’ll come up and snuggle me for a long time. If I come down, only a hug and a kiss?”

“That’s right. YourDragonbreathbook is on the night table. You can read till I come up.”

Sam went.

Mira’s anger creased the space between her brows and tightened her jaw. “I told you straight out, totally clearly, that he has asthma. That he was injured. I told you I ask him not to run flat out. I told you I ask him to take it down a notch if he’s overtaxing his system. And you decided it would be a good idea torun races with him?”

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