Page 29 of Her Dragon Daddy Disaster
My legs trembled with a barely restrained desire to run, making descending the stairs hard. I forced myself to move slowly. They didn’t need to know how badly I was panicking on the outside.
Falling back on the years of hard-trained self-discipline, I managed not to panic. It was a close thing because I was keenly aware of the vulnerability of the figure pressed to my hip.
“Mommy?” Jake asked as I shut the door and leaned back against it, exhaling a long, slow breath, trying to calm my frantic heart.
“Hey, baby!” I said, kissing his forehead repeatedly and squeezing him extra hard.
My driveway seemed an eternity ago now. Saying goodbye to him, thinking I’d never again get to hold him like this, to ruffle his hair.
Blinking hard, I tried to hold the tears back. In hindsight, I never knew why. The only one around was my son, and he’d seenme cry before. It was healthy to show emotions, to let children know adults had feelings, too. They grew up to be more complete people that way.
“Are you crying?”
I nodded.
“I’m sorry, Mommy. I can go home now. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
Well, that went and fucking did it.
“Oh, Jakie,” I laugh-cried, tears streaming down my face as I sobbed into his hair. “These are happy tears, little buddy. Okay? You understand happy tears?”
He shook his head with all the solemnity a four-year-old could muster.
“Remember when I surprised you with SuperPawMegaDog, and you cried?”
Slowly, he nodded.
“You weren’t crying because you were sad, right? You were crying because you were happy.”
“But, Mommy, I didn’t get you a dog.”
I laughed. “No, but you got me something better.”
“What’s that?”
“You came to visit me,” I said, purposefully choosing that word.
Visiting. Because once I got Levi alone, I would makesurehe understood there was no way in hell my son would be staying. As much as another goodbye would break me, I would never be able to rest otherwise. The Dragon Isles were no place for a child from my world.
“Is this where you had to go for work?” Jake asked, squirming out of my arms.
I set him down, following him as he started exploring Levi’s apartment.
“Wow! It’s so high up, Mom! Way higher than our house or Gramma’s. Look, I can see everything from here. All of it.”
“Yes, you can,” I said. “It’s high up.”
“Mom, it was so cool! I was so high up before.”
“What do you mean?”
“The dragons, Mom. They picked me up, and we went vrooosh and wheeee!” He stuck his arms out to the side and started racing around like he was a dragon-plane. “I got to fly on the back of a blue dragon. There was a red one, too. They brought me here, you know. Did you know that, Mom?”
“Yes, I did.”
But he wasn’t listening to me, not really, too caught up in his excitement.
“We flew so high. It was way higher than this, Mom. Like, at least a bit higher. Like, here!” He jumped with his hand to indicate how high. “Then we were over the water. I fell asleep, then. Then I woke up, and I was still on the dragon! It was real, Mom. It really was. I swear it!”
