Page 61 of Sprog
Something in my chest turns over very quietly.
I look at the drawing. At Austin in the middle with his arms and his cut and his bike, the biggest figure there, the whole thing arranged around him. The space that isn't there yet but could be.
"Yeah," I say, before I've thought about it. "I do."
EJ nods like this is already sorted. "I'll put you next to Dad," he says. "You're the right height for it. I'll need to practice drawing a girl on a bike first though, I've never done that." He considers this seriously. "Do you ride?"
"I'm learning," I say, which is true now.
"Good." He looks at the drawing one more time and then walks off toward the kitchen. "Dad says breakfast is ready."
I stand there another moment.
Then I follow him.
CHAPTER 14
Austin
We eat pancakes. The three of us are loud and easy around each other. I can't stop watching it. Sav with EJ, the way they talk to each other, the way she laughs at him, the way he performs for her and can't quite stop grinning. EJ isn’t a shy child, but this is different. He's been waiting for someone to fill this space for as long as he's been old enough to notice there's a space there.
When there's a knock at the door, I open it and find Prez on my doorstep. He looks past me into the kitchen, clocks Sav and EJ still at the table, and something in his face settles.
"I need you," he says. "We have to roll out. Church first."
"Give me a minute."
He steps inside. Sav stands when she sees him and Prez goes to her. He doesn't do the brief handshake thing he does with people he's just being polite to. He hugs her, properly, one arm around her shoulders, and she looks surprised. "Welcome back, Savannah. It's long past time."
She looks over his shoulder at me, and I shrug because I genuinely didn't expect that either.
"Prez, do you want me to go?" she asks when he steps back. "We can do this another day."
"Dad," EJ says immediately, using the voice he uses when he's making a case. "I want Savvy to stay. She said she would."
Sav smiles. "I'll stay with EJ if that's easier." She looks at me. "Be careful."
She comes over and kisses me, and I pull her into me for a second and I hear EJ making the face-pulling noise he makes every time he sees someone kissing their old lady. Sav laughs against my mouth.
"I've got two people to come home to now," I tell her. "I'll be extra careful."
I say goodbye to EJ and go out with Prez. We walk to our bikes, and he stops and turns to me.
He looks at me for a moment with the look he uses when he's decided to say the actual thing instead of the easy thing. "She fits here," he says. "Don't take too long working out what to do about that."
I climb on my bike. "No plans to."
He nods. We ride down to the clubhouse.
Church doesn’t take longand Prez sends us out into the afternoon to find information about what’s left of the HighStakes MC. I ride to Ruby's and get what intel she has, which is enough. I take three slices of pie home for the three of us and ride back up to the house with the particular warmth in my chest that I'm still getting used to, the kind that comes from knowing they're both in there waiting.
I hear laughing before I open the door. Both are properly laughing, EJ's high and uncontrolled and Sav's lower and real. I stop in the doorway for a second just to listen to it.
"What am I missing?" I ask, coming in.
EJ looks up. "Dad. We did puzzles and a movie and Savvy taught me a card game. Dad, she cheated."
"I absolutely did not," Sav says.
