Page 12 of Chasing Forever

“Aunt Merri,” Levi called from his new room just down the hall from mine.

I popped my head in to find him posting his wrestling figures on the chest of drawers beneath his window while Doc snoozed on the floor a few feet away. Looked like the dog was already taken with my boy, not that I was surprised. “Yeah, sweetie?”

He turned from his task to look at me with a pitiful expression. “I’mstarvin’,” he stated. “I’m so hungry I could eat a whole cow all by myself.”

I bugged my eyes out dramatically. “Wow. That’s really hungry. That means I should probably feed you, huh?”

He nodded solemnly. “You should,” he said with all the seriousness of someone much older.

I giggled as I moved into the room and pulled Levi into a tight embrace. Leaning down, I breathed in the scent of his shampoo and let it soothe me. After the day we both experienced, I had a feeling I was going to need a lot of these hugs before I felt completely settled. I reminded myself that my little guy was safe, and the people who had hurt us couldn’t get to us where we were. But until that knowledge finally settled, I’d have to reassure myself by loving on my nephew until the tightness in my chest went away.

“Aunt Merri, you’re squeezin’ me to death,” he croaked dramatically.

I forced myself to let him go, pulling back and ruffling his hair before finally letting my arms fall to my sides. “Well, we can’t have that, can we? I’ll go make you some dinner since you’re so needy. You feel like anything in particular?”

He scrunched his lips to the side and tapped his chin, deep in thought. “Hmm. Oh! What about grilled cheese?”

I wasn’t sure what Tristan had stocked, but he wanted grilled cheese, I’d go to the store and get the ingredients to make it happen. I arched a brow at him. “With tomato?” Levi had loved tomatoes since he was a baby, and the taste for them still hadn’t faded.

He rolled his eyes. “Duh, Aunt Merri. That makes them the best.”

“Of course. How could I forget.”

I left him playing with his toys and headed down the stairs. As I hit the landing to the first floor I noticed the discarded socks and running shoes that had been on the floor earlier were gone. As were the few dishes that had been sitting on the coffee table. Apparently Tristan had done a bit of cleaning. I started toward the kitchen when I heard his lowered voice. It sounded like he was talking on his phone. I decided to head back upstairs to give him some privacy, but as I turned to head back in that direction, I heard my name and pulled up short.

My mom taught me that eavesdropping was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself. I inched closer to the kitchen.

“I’d really appreciate that, man.” He paused like he was listening to the person on the other end of the call. “Yeah, I know. She really deserves to catch a break. I’m not askin’ you to give her a job, just an interview.”

My breath caught as I strained to hear better.

There was another pause on Tristan’s end, then the deep timbre of his voice started up again. “That would be great. Thanks so much. I’ll let her know.” Another pause, followed by an exhale. “She’s a good woman, and that kid is pretty awesome. I want to give them a fighting chance. They deserve some good, man.”

I didn’t have the first clue how to feel about what I overheard. My emotions were suddenly all over the place, swirling around inside me like a tornado. The one that stood out most, however, was appreciation. First, he offered to let us live here, and now he was calling around, trying to secure a job interview. That social worker had brought up both things in our meeting earlier, and it would have been a lie to say I hadn’t been stressed. But in one day, this man had gone out of his way to help me clear both of those hurdles. And he barely knew me.

That guard slipped down a little further. It was becoming clearer with each passing hour that Tristan Fanning was a good man.

I heard him end the call and gave it a few seconds so it wasn’t obvious I’d been listening in before I rounded the corner and entered the kitchen.

Tristan’s head came up, his eyes colliding with mine. The blue flared right before he smiled gently. “Hey.”

It felt like my heart was lodged in my throat. Not only because the man had shown me a kindness I hadn’t experienced in too long without even knowing, but because, at some point, he’d changed out of his work clothes into something more casual. If I thought he looked good clean-cut, it was nothing compared to seeing him standing in his kitchen in his bare feet, wearing a simple pair of dark gray athletic joggers and a plain white T-shirt. “Hi.” I cleared my throat and pointed toward the fridge. “Levi just told me he was hungry, so I was going to see about making dinner, if that’s okay.”

“Of course. You never need to ask. If you or Levi are hungry, never hesitate to help yourselves. I want you to feel like this is your place too. Nothing’s off limits.”

That guard slipped even further as a sincere smile pulled at my lips. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

He moved to the fridge and opened it for me. “I don’t know what all you need, but I’m sure we have it. I asked Blythe to swing by the grocery store while we were packing Levi’s things, and as you can see, she went a little crazy.”

My head swiveled away from the contents of the stuffed-to-the-gills fridge and to Tristan. “You didn’t need to do that.”

He reached an arm up to rub the back of his neck, looking almost bashful as he admitted, “If you’d seen what was in here before, you wouldn’t be sayin’ that.”

My smile grew wider. “Well, thank you. I appreciate you considering us like that.”

When he turned his head, his gaze locking with mine, I realized how close the two of us were, standing in the opened door of the fridge, close enough for it to be dangerous. Despite the cold, the cloves and spice scent of his cologne wrapped around me and heated my blood.

Get it together, Merritt, the voice in my head chastised, snapping me out of the moment. I blinked and turned back to scan the contents of the fridge like they were the most interesting thing I’d ever seen.

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