I knock on Tara’s door and wait. I can hear the TV from inside and figure she probably has Roman planted in front of it again. Mother of the year, as fucking usual.

The door swings open and I’m surprised to see Roman.

“Daddy!” he says.

He reaches to hug me and I dodge him, ducking his head under my arm. He spins free and puts his little fists up. I hold up my palms as targets for him and he punches out a series of lefts and rights. Each little impact of his fist is laughably soft, but his face is scrunched with so much concentration that I almost expect the punches to hurt.

“Good one,” I say after he gives me a right hook. I shake my hand like the punch stung. Roman relaxes, grinning like crazy and running to hug me.

I let him this time, kneeling to hug him back. “How was it, Bud?”

“Good,” he says, but his eyes dart to the side.

I frown, looking over his shoulder and still seeing no sign of Tara. “Is mom around?”

“She’s in the bathroom, I think,” he says.

“Why don’t you go get your stuff ready. Just wait here when you’re done, okay?”

“Okay,” says Roman.

I step inside and head toward the bedroom. I open the door and find Tara sprawled on the bed with her forearm resting over her eyes.

I glance behind me and make sure Roman isn’t in earshot. I hear him distantly knocking things around in his room on the other side of the house.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask.

Tara sucks in a surprised breath and sits up. “What?” she groans, rubbing drool from the corner of her mouth.

I move closer, kneeling to get a better look. Bloodshot eyes. Slumping posture. She looks dizzy.

“Are you drunk?” I ask.

“No,” she says. “I just had a cocktail to take the edge off.”

“To take the edge off?” I ask, shaking my head. “I’m not leaving Roman here with you again. Call that fucking lawyer of yours if you want. If you want to see him, you need to grow up.”

“Grow up?” she shouts. “You want me to talk about growing up? You’re over there playing in your stupid fucking garage and your stupid fucking cars. And you’re fucking that slut who used to call herself my best friend. Get a real job. You’re teaching our son to be lazy and pathetic.”

I can’t help smirk at the hypocrisy. “I have better things to do, Tara. Sleep it off, and you can call me when you’re ready to be a fucking mother,” I say, slamming the door behind me. Roman is waiting by the front door when I step into the living room. “Come on, bud, let’s go home.”

When we get back home, Roman goes inside to help Taylor with an oil change. At his age, helping basically consists of handing Taylor tools when he needs them, but Roman loves every second of it. I’m about to get to work when I look toward Sandra’s house and hear muffled cursing and a loud metallic clatter.

I head over to her house, wondering what I’m doing with every step I take. I guess I don’t have a plan. I don’t know if I’m hoping she really is pregnant. I don’t know if I want to throttle her or want to marry her. All I know is my feet are taking me over there. Again.

I find her in the garage. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun and her pants are soaked up to the knees. She’s wearing a man’s style button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled back, and she looks fucking adorable in it.

Sandra glances up at me. A wet lock of hair is plastered to her forehead. “Reid,” she says.

“You know you could get seriously hurt trying to fix that yourself,” I say.

She drops the wrench in her hand and puts her face in her hands. I’m surprised when I realize she’s breaking down in tears.

“Hey,” I say carefully, moving to sit beside her and put an arm around her. She feels so good in my arms. So small and fragile, even though I know the mind knocking around in that head of hers is strong as hell and fiercely independent. “You’re okay. You’ll be fine.”

“No,” she says, voice heavy with emotion. “My parents are coming tomorrow. They are going to find out I’ve been lying. They are going to see my life is a mess.”

“Your life isn’t a mess” I say. I stare outside as I hold her, watching the way the trees I’ve grown up looking at sway as the wind whispers through them. “See those trees?” I ask, nodding toward the trees. “Tell me what you see.”

She sniffles. “It’s windy,” she says. “What am I supposed to see?”

“The trees can’t do shit about the wind, Sandra. Wind comes. The trees bend. But those are the same fucking trees that have been there since I was a kid.”

She’s quiet for a moment. “What are you saying?”

I shrug uncomfortably. I’m not used to voicing these kinds of things. They usually just float around in my mind. “I just mean shit happens and it may feel like it’s going to knock you down, but the trees that are too stiff to bend get uprooted in a storm. The trees that bend make it through.”

She grins up at me. “Okay. Maybe you’re not just a barbarian who hits cars with wrenches. I see your point. But I don’t see how it is going to help me.”

“Because there’s more than one way to fight this. Bend, but don’t break.”

Sandra sighs and leans her head into me. I close my eyes, listening to the sound of the trees and the distant clink of the boys in my garage working on something. Holding her and being here with her feels so fucking right. I feel a sudden surge of certainty. The way I’m feeling about Sandra isn’t because of my grandfather’s will. Maybe it started that way. Now, every time I’m with her my feelings just get stronger. The craving. I can hardly believe she was in front of me all the time I was with Tara and I never saw her for what she is. Perfect.

“Bend, but don’t break…” she says thoughtfully.

There’s a loud crash from the garage. We both jump up together and run the distance from her house to mine. We find Roman wincing in pain and holding his toe. Taylor is white as a ghost. My eyes go immediately to the heavy toolbox on the ground and its spilled contents. I see the dent on its size from where it must have fallen.

I pick up Roman, who is starting to cry hard now. “I’ll go with you,” says Sandra. I place him gently on Sandra’s lap in the back of my track and take off toward Dr. Stephens’ clinic.

Sandra sits in the back of the truck and holds Roman, rocking him softly and running her fingers through his hair as she shushes him. I start the car, feeling like my insides are ice. My little guy. Fuck. I should have been there. Taylor watches us drive away, rubbing the back of his neck guiltily. My first instinct is to be pissed at him for letting something like this happen, but I can’t blame him. I’m the one who walked away from my son in a dangerous place like a garage to go look in on Sandra.

Fuck.

I can practically feel his pain. My foot burns just imagining what it must feel like. Cold tendrils of empathetic pain snake from my foot and all across my skin, giving me goosebumps. “You’re going to be okay, Bud,” I say, glancing in the rearview as I pull close to a hundred miles per hour in my rush to get him to Dr. Stephens.

Sandra meets my eye in the rearview as she looks at the damage. “Nothing permanent,” she mouths.

I feel a slight relief. Thank God. My first thoughts were to the idea of him losing a toe. Toes, even. He wouldn’t be able to play sports like I did. He’s too young to have his options limited. I knew I would never put any kind of limits on what he can do. I spent so long feeling chained up by my family’s desire for me to play college ball that I promised to never do that to my own kids. If he wants to be a fucking computer programmer, well, good. I’ll encourage the shit out of it. I’ll even take a class up at the local college so I can know what the hell he’s talking about.

Point is, I don’t want anything to be off limits for my son. I want the world to be his for the taking. If some stupid ass accident robs him of that, I don’t know what I’m going to do.

They take us in right away at the doctor’s office and get Roman in for x-rays. Sandra has to step out to grab a call while Dr. Stephens goes over the facts with me.

“It’s a broken metatarsal,” says the doctor, pointing to one of the longer bones in the middle of Roman’s foot. “He’ll have to wear a boot ‘til it heals. Kids his age heal fast, so I expect him to be all better in about six weeks. Eight at the longest.”

“Thanks, Doc,” I say, clapping Dr. Stephens a little too hard on the shoulder.

He winces, but smiles at me. “Of course.”

We’re driving home only thirty minutes later. Roman is already looking ten times better. He’s humming and poking at the medical boot on his foot. “Stop messing with it,” I say.

“Sorry, Dad.”

Sandra’s sitting in the passenger seat and I realize for the first time since she stepped out to take a call that she looks pale as a ghost.

“You still thinking about your parents?” I ask.

“Yeah. A little,” she admits.

I frown. “So what’s the deal? You said you were worried about them finding something out?”

She laughs humorlessly. “You could say that. I haven’t been entirely honest with them when they’ve bothered to ask about my life. Seeing where I live and where I work is going to be a shock to them. And I kind of told them I was in a serious relationship to get them to stop trying to set me up with guys.”

“Where do they think you work?”

“I never exactly told them where I work. And… well, they think I’m kind of engaged to a businessman. A wealthy one,” she says, voice growing quieter and more hesitant with every syllable.

I bark a laugh. “You’re kidding.”

“What’s engaged?” asked Roman.

“It’s when two people are planning to get married, Bud,” I say.

“Oh,” says Roman. He’s quiet for a few seconds and then he speaks again. “Are you going to get engaged Miss Sandra, Daddy?”

Sandra and I laugh, but I notice Sandra’s cheeks burning bright red.

“Actually,” I say. “Miss Sandra and I are going to play a game tomorrow. We’re going to pretend to be engaged. And daddy is going to pretend he knows something about business.”

“What?” says Sandra. All the red has drained from her face. “No. That would never work. You couldn’t--”

“Seriously?” I ask. “I can pass as a businessman if I want. It’s settled. Tomorrow morning. Roman and I will be there and we’ll be looking sharp. It’s a date.”

Sandra tries to adopt a neutral expression, but I see the corner of her mouth keep trying to pull up into a smile.

What are you getting yourself into here, Reid?