Page 114 of Down & Dirty

CHAPTER 35

CORY

“Iwant this one,” Micah said, tugging on the display of pajamas in front of me.

I fished the hanger off the rack and held it up. “You want this one?” I asked, looking between him and the Wonder Woman sleep set. It had a red cape attached with Velcro at the shoulders and a pink glitter W on the chest.

“Yeah,” he replied eagerly, bouncing on his toes.

“Okay, that’s the one then,” I said, tossing it into the cart.

When Micah had spilled finger paint all over his pajamas that morning, I’d volunteered to bring him to get a fresh set. But I was a sucker for his big round eyes and even in his little kid mind, I think he knew he had me by the balls. We’d been in the store for barely fifteen minutes and had already amassed quite a haul. Sky was back at the house working on the Christmas eve roast with Jacob, so there was no one to stop me.

“Momma loves these,” he said, streaking his chubby little fingers across the display of perfumes we were walking past.

“She does, doesn’t she?” I agreed, my mind drifting to a vision of Sky’s neck, head tilted back as I drank in one of the many scents she wore. “Should we get her another one?”

It was Christmas, after all, and half the cart was stuff Micah had pointed out that his mother liked. Spoiling the two of them had become a favorite pastime of mine, even if it often got dirty looks from Sky. She worried I was going overboard. But I was just getting started.

Things with my sponsors were better than ever, and Bruce had just inked another extension on my Harmsch watch contract. The press had eaten up the news of our marriage with more enthusiasm than any of us expected. But maybe I should have; Skylar was unlike anyone I’d ever met, let alone been linked to. How could they not have been as captivated as I was?

“I like this one,” Micah said, picking up a small red-capped bottle. I gave it a sniff and shrugged; it actually smelled pretty nice. “Good call, my man. Let’s get it.”

I grabbed an unopened box and tossed it onto the pile, steering us toward the checkout. I was going to have to sneak this stuff into the house without Sky seeing so Micah could give it to her Christmas morning.

“Do you think Santa will find me?” he asked nervously when we got in line. “I’m not home or at Grumpy and Grammie’s house. What if he doesn’t know where I am?”

I was the reason he wasn’t in either of the two places he felt most comfortable, so I thought for a second before I replied. I wanted Micah to like being in Maine just as much as I wanted him to like being around me.

“He knows if you’ve been good all year long, right?” He nodded up at me. “Which means he can follow along with you to all the places you go all year.” He nodded again, the worry lingering. “So he always knows where you are, Micah. He can’t lose you. He knows where every one of us is, every minute of the day. Especially on Christmas morning.”

He took that in, his lips rolling inward as he thought about it. He looked just like his mother, puzzling things out in his mind before he finally nodded one more time.

“He knew about the time I spilled jam all over my sheets and didn’t tell Momma for a week.”

My attempt to stifle a laugh failed, especially when the older woman ahead of us in line snorted loudly when she overhead.

“I bet that made a real mess,” I said, brushing his curly hair from his forehead.

He giggled. “I had sticky feet every day.”

“That sounds disgusting.”

He laughed harder. “It was dis . . . gusting.”

Damn, this kid was cute.

It had been a long time since Christmas morning in the Ellis house had been anything but a subdued, quiet affair. Coffee and store-bought muffins were replaced by hot cocoa and homemade pancakes, chocolate chips and blueberries tumbling to the floor as laughter rang through the still-dim morning.

“You sure you don’t want any help in there?” Skylar asked, craning her head back for a view through the doorway from her spot on the couch.

“No, we’re all set,” Jacob chuckled, working as quickly as he could to contain the mess Micah was making.

She turned back to me, a doubtful smile on her face. “He’s in his element right now.”

“Micah or Jake?” I laughed, taking a sip of my coffee.

She considered that before shrugging. “Both.”

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