Kevin was bouncing his feet against the seat, looking around and out the window. “Are we gonna see Uncle Nic?”

“No, hon,” Kyle answered automatically. “We’re heading back to your mom’s place.” He had a key there, and it made more sense to bring him back to Evie’s than Nic’s place when they had things to talk about.

Kevin was quiet for a minute, then bounced in his seat again. “Can we go play?”

“No, we’re going to head into the house and get you a snack and talk.” Kyle wasn’t going to lie to him until they got there, but he didn’t want to instill dread into him, either.

Kevin was quiet for the rest of the drive, and Kyle’s heart hurt. I wish I could help him feel better.

Even when he got peanut butter sandwich bites, Kevin didn’t cheer up. He carried his own plastic bowl into the living room as Kyle steered him to the couch.

“Can we swing?” Kevin tried one more time. He was definitely trying to distract Kyle, which was adorably naïve.

“Not right now, pal.”

Kyle settled on the couch and tucked Kevin into his side, looking around at the living room. Hopefully, being in a familiar place like this would put him at ease.

“So, I need to understand what’s going on. Why did you want to fight?” Kyle asked, keeping his voice light. “What were you thinking?”

Kevin stared at the bowl in his lap, his hands tightly closed around it. “I don’t know.”

“Okay, how were you feeling?”

“Bad.”

Okay, that was a start. Kyle kept his arm around Kevin’s shoulders. “Okay. A sad or angry kind of bad?”

“I was mad,” Kevin murmured, his shoulders slumping. He picked out a sandwich and ate it, then twisted apart the next one and ate it, too.

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to share my blocks.”

“You like sharing, don’t you? This is something kind of new, huh? What’s changed lately that made you not want to share?” Kyle asked.

Kevin sighed. “Mom doesn’t like me anymore.”

Kyle’s chest tightened. Uh oh. “Why do you think that? Honey, I know she loves you, and I love you.”

“Dana doesn’t like me.”

“Do you like her?”

“No!” Kevin exclaimed, his voice suddenly louder. “She’s… I don’t want to share Mom.”

Aha. Kyle hugged him close. “Sharing is hard sometimes, isn’t it, honey?”

“It’s not fair. She just came back and… and… now Mom’s with her all the time and I don’t like it.”

Despite what had happened today, Kyle was proud of his son. He’d figured out what was making him mad so easily. He and Evie worked damn hard to make sure Kevin would grow up knowing himself.

“Well, Nic’s taking some of my time,” Kyle started.

“That’s different.”

Oooh. I shouldn’t be so pleased about that. Kyle was thrilled, despite himself. He’d been hesitating for so long, certain that his son would hate whoever he picked, but Kevin liked Nic.

Then he put on his parenting mask again. Right.

“Your mom and I both love you a lot, and you just met Dana and Nic, right? They already like you, too. Right?”

Kevin nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

“When you’re feeling like this, that’s called being lonely. You feel sad because you love someone and they aren’t spending every moment with you, right?”

Kevin nodded.

“And there are different kinds of people. Some people don’t feel lonely like that, but most of us do. It’s hard to share people. But you wouldn’t like it if you didn’t have friends to play with, right? Javier? Ginny? Lionel? All your friends make you happy.”

Kevin was still listening carefully. “Yeah. I like them.”

God, I’m bullshitting all of this. Does he believe me? Kyle had to go for it. “Right. If you were just playing with me and your mom, you wouldn’t like it. You love us, but you want to be around all kinds of people.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s just like that for grownups. We love you a lot, but we want to play with all kinds of people. Loving someone else doesn’t mean we love you any less. You can love all kinds of people. If you don’t love Dana, that’s okay. But your mom does, you know? So it’s good to try to be nice to her, unless she’s being mean to you.”

Kevin kicked his heels and nodded, looking happier now. “Yeah. Thank you, Daddy.” He promptly spilled his peanut butter sandwich cookies all over Kyle as he launched himself at Kyle to hug him around the waist.

Kyle laughed and hugged his son back, trying not to crush any of the cookies now scattered over the couch. Thank yous were rare in the parenting world, let alone right after the hardest conversation he’d had in some time with his son. “You’re welcome. I love you, Kevin.” He let go and sat back. “So when you have trouble sharing, no fighting, right?”

“Right.” Kevin started to bounce again. “Can we swing now?”

Kyle didn’t want to reward him for the early day home, but he did want Kevin to feel good about figuring out his emotions. That made the decision for him. “Yeah, darling. Let’s head out.”

The next couple hours were a lot easier than that first hour, and Kyle lost track of time while he played with Kevin.

“We’re here!” It was Dana’s voice coming into the room first when the front door opened, but despite that, Kevin sprinted off toward the front door.

“Hi Dana! I like your hair.”

Kyle came around the corner and smiled at the moment of surprise that crossed both Evie’s and Dana’s faces.

“Thank you, hon.” Dana crouched to hug Kevin. “I got it done up to look pretty when I was away. And your dress is so cute!”

“I got it done up when you were away,” Kevin mirrored quite seriously, like he was conducting a formal adult conversation.

They hid their smiles, and Evie shot Kyle a grateful look as Dana took Kevin into the living room to talk about colors. “Thank you. How’d it go?”

“All fixed up,” Kyle murmured, hugging her lightly. “He was jealous of Dana being around. I explained that we all need lots of friends and people to love, and I think he got it.”

Evie nodded slowly. “Now we hope that sinks in.”

“I hope so,” Kyle agreed. Then, he cleared his throat. “And… he likes Nic. Speaking of whom, I should get hom—uh, to his place.”

Evie’s eyes sparkled. “When do we get to see him again?”

“Soon,” Kyle promised, grabbing his jacket.

His goodbye hug from Kevin almost toppled him over, and his chest was still warm as he headed to the car.

I didn’t fail as a parent today. Isn’t every day like this, over and over? I think I can handle it. Especially if I’m not alone through it…

And no, he wasn’t alone with Evie around, but just like he’d told Kevin, he couldn’t rely just on her. He needed someone.

As for Nic? One of these days, he’d be brave enough to tell him that.