Page 28 of Hollow Heart

My heart breaks a little at his admission.

I know part of parenting is raising your kids to be self-sufficient.

To notneedyou.

But damn it if I don’t want to be needed, and not just by Bobby.

I want someone to need me again, like I needed my wife.

I need someone to want me the way she wanted me. Like I am everything.

Following him down to the kitchen, I take the small victory.

We sit down, and the silence isn’t as awkward as it should be.

I spin my noodles around my fork, the sauce nice and thick, full of spice.

Not too bad, if I do say so myself.

I watch as Bobby cuts up his vegetables and noodles.

“How... how did it go today? At rehearsal with... Felix?” He attempts to make conversation, but I can tell something is still bothering him.

“Okay, I guess. He’s just, uh...”

“What?” Bobby blows on his noodles, looking at me with confusion.

I wasn’t forced to sign an NDA or anything, but a part of me wonders just how much Ishouldtell my kid.

Granted, he knows his mother and I weren’t saints by any means, before we had him, anyway...

But he is still akid.

“He’s a complex individual,” I say carefully.

Bobby chuckles. “If by complex you mean a loose cannon, and a total hot topic...”

My eyebrows furrow. “I didn’t think you listened to Felix Hart.”

Bobby shrugs in between bites. “Sometimes you can’t get away from certain musicians. Plus every girl in my class is like... obsessed with him ever since he did that spread in Playgirl.” Immediately, he blushes, realizing what he’s said.

“I mean... not that I’ve seen it. I’ve just... heard about it.”

I let out a chuckle as he averts his gaze.

“Is that what you’re worried about? You think I’m going to be mad to discover you look at softcore porn?” I taunt him.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a little alarm goes off. He wouldn’t be the first kid to look at porn in this day and age.

God only knows what I had available to me when I was sixteen.

He turns about six shades of red, and his vehement dismissal makes me want to laugh.

“I don’t!” he says sternly. “I’m serious!”

I raise my hands in a truce. “It’s perfectly natural for a sixteen year old to?—”

“Please don’t, Dad. I’m trying to eat,” he says hurriedly.

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