Page 98 of Hold on Tight

A flush had risen in her cheeks, and he wished like mad they weren’t on a boat with Sam mere feet away, but later on, he was going to have the best time demonstratingvividlyto her just how much he believed what he was saying. In the meantime, he would get a start on things …

He took her in his arms and lowered his mouth to hers, savoring the last moment before contact, when it felt like the world was going to catch fire and burn them up yet he didn’t care, because she was in his arms, heat and light andhis Mira. A tiny whisper of a groan escaped her just before he slid his tongue into her mouth and his hands into her hair.

“Kissing!” said Sam, and he felt Mira’s laugh vibrate through his lips, in his heart, in every cell of his body.

Chapter 32

Sam fell asleep in the car on the way home and stayed asleep while Jake carried him up the stairs and tucked him in. She kissed his cheek, and he stirred and burrowed farther into the pillow. Jake stood at her shoulder, suspended, breathing. Foreign and familiar. As if he’d been there hundreds of other nights holding vigil like this.

She kissed Sam’s forehead and cheeks, nose and chin, then stepped back.

Jake slipped in front of her and stood over Sam. He looked so peaceful.

She guessed he hadn’t seen many kids sleeping. She’d seen a few besides Sam, friends’ kids, and they all looked like this, as if they’d thrown themselves into sleep’s arms, worries abandoned.

Jake was big in Sam’s room. The room was small to begin with, and Jake filled it, making the corners shrink in on her.

She was pretty sure he’d been clean-shaven this morning, but now there was five o’clock shadow clinging to his jaw and chin. It was an unnecessary reminder of how masculine he was. Overkill, to throw a stubbled jaw on top of the way his shoulders and his scent filled the room, crowding her and making all the invisible hairs on her body stand on end.

“Will I wake him up if I kiss him?”

“No.”But you might break my heart. In the best possible way.

He bent over the bed, and she heard him whisper something, but she couldn’t hear what it was. It didn’t matter. The fact of the whispering, the fact of his leaning in close, his cheek so close to Sam’s, was enough to make her want to cry.

He kissed Sam’s face. He kissed him three times, once on the forehead and once on each cheek.

“His cheeks are so soft.”

He lifted his head and showed her his reverence. She felt full, her heart swollen with her love for him and for Sam. Her eyes brimming with it. “I think I know how the book is going to end.”

“What book?”

“The one I’m writing. Do you want to see?”

She brought him into the living room and gave him a frosted glass full of beer and went to get her paintings. She came back and laid the pages in his lap.

“You’ve been having all these revelations about what you want to do with your life,” she said. “Well, I have, too. I’m not quitting my job or anything—not after I’ve practically killed myself this summer to keep it—but I definitely need some kind of other outlet. Something creative. So—yeah. Here it is.”

She’d been painting almost every night since the day Jake had rescued Sam from the babysitter’s whack-job ex.

He lifted the pages one by one, examining them in that way he had, as if she’d disappeared from the room, as if the world had dropped away and there was only her work to take in. Drinking it in.

She leaned over so she could see the paintings too, because she was so happy with them.

Jake and Sam. Only not exactly.

A man with a robot leg.

A man and a boy, playing pinecone baseball.

A man and a boy, running, side by side.

Racing. Winning.

Like him and Sam, only bigger. A whole story she was telling the world.

“I haven’t written the words yet,” she said. “But I know exactly how it starts.”

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