LITMIR.BIZ

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you sure you don’t want me to sleep in a barn?”

      “No.”

      “You don’t have a wife or anything?” the kid asked.

      “No,” Bennett said.

      “Girlfriend?”

      “Do you?” Bennett asked.

      Dallas shrugged. “Hard to hang on to one when you’re moving all the time.”

      “Sure.”

      More seconds ticked off.

      “I bet if you touch any of the girls here their dads run you off the property with a shotgun, right?” he asked.

      “I don’t know about them, but I might chase you with a shotgun.”

      Dallas snorted. “That’s funny. Especially because I know my mom is from here, and I know that you knocked her up.”

      “I did,” Dallas said. “She told me she had a miscarriage.”

      Dallas looked shocked at that, and Bennett wondered if he should have said that. But honestly, there was no point letting the kid cast him as any more of a bad guy than he already had. Marnie wasn’t here. Marnie was off mired in drug addiction somewhere. And any sympathy that he had felt for her situation was rapidly disintegrating. He would have helped her. He would have stayed with her. She didn’t need to run away. He had no clue why in hell she had done that. No clue what had possessed her. If she hadn’t wanted the baby, he would have taken the baby. He would never understand this.

      “She didn’t tell me that,” Dallas said.

      “I don’t know what she told you. But I’ll tell you, honestly, I found out she was pregnant, I was going to propose to her. She told me she had a miscarriage, and then she told me she was leaving town. She broke up with me. We were young and we were stupid.”

      “I’m younger than you were,” Dallas pointed out.

      “Yes. And you’re young and stupid. Because when you’re fifteen you’re stupid. And when you’re sixteen you’re not much better. We were stupid. But I didn’t know... I didn’t know. You don’t have to believe me right now. I don’t know that I can really believe any of this. I feel like I’m going to blink and you’re going to disappear. I’m going to wake up and it’s gonna be some kind of weird dream. But as long as you’re standing there... I didn’t know about you. I’m going to be honest with you. That’s what I’m going to do.” Bennett made a decision then, and he decided to go with it. “Whatever else, I’m going to tell you the truth. I’m going to be really bad at this. I don’t have any experience with kids.”

      “Not really a kid,” Dallas said, shrugging.

      “You’re not,” Bennett said, his heart clenching tight. Because the boy in front of him was really more of a young man, and the first fifteen years of his life were lost to Bennett. There was nothing he could do about it. That hurt like a son of gun.

      “But you are,” he continued. “And you need somebody. I’m going to be that person. And I’m going to be honest with you. Even if it’s hard. So, that’s my first bit of honesty.”

      “That doesn’t mean I believe you,” Dallas said. “Just because you told me to.”

      “That’s fine. It’s going to take a while for you to believe that, I know.” He swallowed hard, and the sound of his heartbeat blended into more seconds ticking by.

      “Do you have an Xbox or anything?” Dallas asked, breaking the silence.

      “No,” Bennett responded.

      “Really? What the hell do you do?”

      “I have animals,” Bennett responded. “They’re time-consuming.”

      Dallas frowned. “What the hell do you do for work?”

      “I’m a veterinarian,” Bennett responded. “Big animals. Cows. Horses. Llamas.”

      “Llamas?”

      “Llamas get sick too.”

      “What do you do around here for fun? Did you...go cow tipping?”

      Bennett crossed his arms and looked at Dallas. “Well, I got my girlfriend pregnant when we were sixteen, so I think that answers your question about what we do for fun around here.”

      Dallas blinked, and then huffed a reluctant laugh. “Great. But you just told me to stay away from the girls.”

      “I didn’t say I recommended that kind of behavior,” Bennett said. “I mean, I got my girlfriend pregnant. And now I’m standing here with you.”

      “Condoms, dude.”

      Bennett shook his head. “Okay. Too much honesty. Way too much honesty. I’ll get you an Xbox.”

      Bennett was a terrible parent already. He was making deals and bargains and buying Xboxes. And he hadn’t even told his brothers yet. Or his sister. Or Kaylee.

      Dammit. Kaylee.

      She was going to be so mad at him.

      “Where’s that bedroom at?” Dallas asked, looking around.

      For just a moment a crack in the kid’s bravado seemed to break. Right around the moment when Bennett felt his own beginning to crumble.

      “I’ll show you.” He walked him down the hall and opened the door to a room that was fully furnished, and definitely not the kind of thing a teenage boy would find interesting at all. Because it was done up for guests he had never had. Hypothetical ones that he thought someday when he and Olivia had married they might have.

      There was a plaid bedspread and a full-size bed with headboard. Art with Oregon landscapes framed on the walls.

      Dallas looked around and dropped his trash bag next to his feet. “It works.” He turned to Bennett. “Don’t worry. I probably won’t kill you in your sleep.”

      Bennett lifted a brow. “Probably?”

      “I’ve lived with a lot of families. I only did that once.”

      Bennett had to laugh at that, a forced, short chuckle, because of course the thought had crossed his mind. And of course this kid was calling it out. Because he was just that kind of kid. Hard and direct and more than willing to put himself at odds with Bennett in the interest of not showing any vulnerability.

      But it was there.

      The very fact that the kid was standing here, and not running off in the woods was evidence of that.

      “Can I take a shower?”

      “Yeah,” Bennett said. “Bathroom is across the hall.”

      “Cool.”

      He stood there for a moment, and then looked over at Bennett. “Is there any point in me unpacking this?” He gestured down to the plastic bag.

      “Yeah,” Bennett said. “Unpack it. Throw it away.”

      He’d get him a new bag. But not now. Not when it would just look like he was giving him nicer luggage for a nomadic existence. No. He’d make sure he didn’t need a bag for a good while.

      “I’m just checking. Because if you really didn’t know about me, and you’re really as surprised as you say you are, I figure it’s going to take a little while for reality to set in. And when it does, you probably won’t want me here.”

      “I’m going to have you here,” Bennett said.

      That was the truth. He was giving him the truth. Want was... He didn’t even know what that word meant right now.

      But he had been prepared sixteen years ago to upend his life to raise a child. To put everything aside for the baby he had made with Marnie, accident or not. That it was all happening

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