Then he was gone, leaving me standing there in confusion.
I looked over to Bourne to see if he’d noticed his abrupt departure only to see him glaring at Neal’s back.
“Everything okay?” I asked curiously.
Bourne shrugged, his eyes going to Asa.
“You ready to go back to class, little man?” he asked.
Asa pouted. “Do I have to?”
Bourne grinned, making my heart skip a beat.
“Yeah,” he said. “Your mommy and I are driving to Austin. I didn’t forget that I’m going to get you those cookies that you like, though.”
Bourne had made this trip before because of his tattoo artist—who he planned on seeing while I was in meetings this week—living in Austin. Meaning he’d frequently stopped by the cookie place right next door and brought Asa some cookies home.
He’d done this multiple times now, and I honestly couldn’t wait to try the cookies myself.
Apparently, the guy that did the tattooing had a back door into the cookie place because his wife owned it. And when Bourne was there, he always got hot cookies.
And I loved hot cookies straight from the oven.
“Fine.” Asa’s shoulders slumped. “But they better be the good ones.”
Bourne laughed and held his hand out for the bags.
“We’ll drop this off in your room. Your daddy can pick it up when he gets you off the bus later,” Bourne said.
Asa handed it over but made sure to stop him and dig through the bag for a giant pencil with a banana eraser on it.
I looked at Bourne with raised eyebrows.
He shrugged at my look. “Hey, he asked.”
I rolled my eyes, causing him to smirk at me.
“Give me a hug, baby boy,” I ordered, holding my arms out.
Asa threw himself into them, and I hugged him to me tightly before smothering his face with kisses, causing him to giggle.
“Mom!” he whined.
I hated when he called me mom. I missed the days when he called me mommy.
“Love you,” I said. “Like a little pig.”
“Love you little. Love you big,” Asa chirped.
I let him go, and then Bourne swooped in and picked him up, returning him back to his classroom.
I watched from the end of the hallway as Bourne walked with him, easily carrying him on the crook of his arm as if he weighed nothing.
I couldn’t hold him like that anymore.
The most I could handle was holding him on my back and hoping that he didn’t want to ride far.
Bourne looked as if he was holding a bag of flour instead of a fifty-pound kid.
“You got a good one there.”
I looked over at Principal O’Malley.
“Which one?” I teased.
“Both, dear,” O’Malley said. “Both.”
***
We arrived at the hotel in Austin hours after we were originally intending due to all of the traffic.
“What the fuck is going on?” Bourne said as he looked up at the hotel.
There were people everywhere.
Bikers, more accurately.
“There’s a rally this weekend,” someone answered.
It was an older man with salt and pepper hair.
The little nametag on his MC cut read ‘Big Papa.’
I smiled at him. “Like a motorcycle rally?”
He nodded. “And there’s also a huge marathon. There are runners and bikers everywhere.”
My brows lifted. “Wow. I had no clue.”
The big man shrugged and walked to a beautiful woman that was talking on her cell phone a few yards away.
Bourne caught both of our bags in his hand, bleeped the locks on his truck, and gestured for me to go in front of him inside.
I made sure to take the carousel door, causing him to sigh and follow me.
Grinning at him as we walked up to the concierge desk, I missed the first part of the woman’s comment as I arrived at her desk.
“…reservation?” she chirped.
I pulled out my phone then started to sort through my emails, finding the reservation number.
After showing it to her, she started typing at her computer and frowning.
I started to worry when she began taking longer than I thought was needed.
“Is there something wrong?” Bourne asked.
The chick looked worried as she said, “Umm, there seems to be a mix up with your rooms. The one we have you booked in for the night was just booked out to another person.”
I closed my eyes.
“Do you have the other room she booked still available?” Bourne asked.
She started typing some more.
“It shows here that you missed check-in time by a couple of hours. On our paperwork, we say that we’ll re-book your room if you don’t let us know that you’re going to be late,” she said nervously.
“No,” Bourne said. “I’ve already been charged on my credit card. I know this because I was looking at my bank statement while getting gas. And we did call. An hour and a half ago, actually. We even did the key card thing through your app. They said to come to the front desk for our room number.”
The woman’s face went a little red, then she turned to look at a man that was talking at the end of the counter.