I bit my lip in order to keep my expression neutral.
Not that it helped. He knew me far too well to be fooled by my forced expression.
“But,” he continued, moving me so I was laying right on top of him. “I’ve met the right woman. Fallen in love with her and her beautiful children. I never want to replace their dad, but I’d like to think he’d approve, that I’ll do things for them that he’d want. If you’ll let me, stop holding me at arm’s length, I’ll be happy with that. More than that. My cup runneth the fuck over with all of that, baby.”
We didn’t say anything after that.
Even I didn’t have an argument for that.“Mom?”
I glanced up from my computer screen to see my son standing in front of me looking hesitant. Tentative. Two words that I’d never used to describe my son. He was confident, ready to try anything, do anything, say anything. He’d always felt comfortable in his own skin, and I was so proud of that fact. That Ranger and I had given him enough room and love to feel like he could fit into this world however he wanted to.
Lily was the same. But she was quieter about it. Still discovering. I loved that curiosity.
It unnerved me to see my son like this. And, of course, my first instinct was panic. To get hysterical. But whatever this was, it wasn’t life and death. He wasn’t bleeding from anywhere. Nothing was broken. Therefore me panicking would only make him feel worse.
I forced my face to neutral. “Hey, dude. What’s up?”
Jack looked to the ground. Fidgeted a little. Then his eyes found mine. “Is Kace going to die?”
It was only through pure determination that I didn’t flinch at the question. At the even, almost jaded way he asked that.
“Everyone dies, sweetheart,” I explained, forcing myself to give him the true, realistic answer instead of placating him with a lie that everything was going to be fine. “But most everyone lives to be old, gray, wrinkled. Kace has many, many years to wait for that to happen. He’s young and healthy. It is definitely not something that’s going to happen soon. Surely not something that you need to worry about.” He was worried, that much was clear. “What makes you ask that?”
He sighed, looking out the window. “Because Dad died.”
The blow was immediate. Paralyzing. There would always be these moments. When I thought my kids might’ve healed. Might’ve somehow figured out a way to get through life without this shadow over them.
But, of course, that wasn’t how life worked.
Although I sure wished it did.
I took a deep breath. All I wanted to do was grab hold of my son, pull him into my lap and hug him tight enough to protect him. But he was too old for that now. For the hugs. For the protection.
“And you feel that because Kace wears the same patch, does the same stuff that dad did that he might die too?” I asked.
Jack shook his head. “No, because sometimes people die. Not because of anything else, they just do. It can happen to anyone. Dad was strong. He was kind of old, I guess, but not like grandpa. And he still died. The same with Grandpa Steg. He was old like grandad, too, but strong like Dad. But they both died.”
Another blow.
This one deeper. Harder.
Because he wasn’t just thinking about death on the surface. Specific to the Sons of Templar. He was thinking of it like it was really. Cruel. Unyielding. He was losing his innocence, and there was not a damn thing I could do about it.
“Yes, baby. Sometimes people die,” I answered. “No matter how strong they are. No matter how good they are. Sometimes the world is cruel, and it hurts us when we don’t deserve it. It’s natural to be a little afraid of something happening to people around you. But you’re afraid because you like Kace, right?”
Jack frowned ever so slightly at that. It almost made me want to smile, despite the subject matter. He was so stubborn and concerned with breaking his ‘cool guy’ façade that he was trying so hard to maintain. Admitting he cared about Kace, in his eyes, at least, would damage said façade. But my son was not a liar.
So he nodded, still frowning.
“Sweetheart, that unfortunately is the thing about caring about people. Loving people. We give them a part of ourselves to take care of. And even the best of people—Kace is one of those, by the way—the people who will take care of that part of us, they can’t control the big things. Like death. It’s scary. It makes you not want to care about people because you don’t want to get hurt.”
Jack’s eyes darted to his shoes, then back up to me.