Page 1 of Roundabout

CHAPTER 1

Coty

Hands on my hips, I stand back to gaze down the middle of our two rows of apple trees, inhaling the rich combination of earth and growth and hard work. After years of babying these things, they finally produced fruit this year. It’s a little late in the season now, so most of the apples were already picked and used, but I brought Jace out to see if we could find any stragglers to take over to Marc’s petting zoo. With no breeze today, the buzz of bees fills the calm air, and I study one flitting close to my three-year-old since we don’t know if he’s allergic to stings or not yet. Jace flinches away from the bee, his shoulders up to his ears as his little body starts to shake. With a gentle tone, I talk him through the fear, reminding him this kind of bee isn’t really interested in us, and as long as we leave it alone, it’ll leave us alone. Once the bee moves on, Jace relaxes and focuses on trying to twist an apple off a branch exactly how I’ve been showing him for the last few weeks. Almost instantly, he loses patience and jerks on the fruit with all his might, falling right on his butt with a whiny groan…until he looks down at his full hands. Proud of himself, he smiles up at me and holds out the apple with only a few brushes of vibrant red across its mostly golden-yellow skin.

That puts us at two. Two apples for the goats. If I cut them small enough, they should last a good ten to twenty seconds, and that’s if Marc’s cow, Marcus, doesn’t wander over, getting his fill, too.

“Way to go, buddy,” I tell my son with my own smile, not only for persevering with the apple but also for keeping his cool with the bee. I know how scared he gets.

We got assigned to Jace a week after he was born. Our first time seeing him was in the NICU while the poor guy was coming down off crack cocaine and God knows what else. The month that followed was one of the longest of our lives as we watched him go through withdrawals. He’s been doing great ever since but one of the long-term effects is bouts of temporary phobias. Angela and I adopted him outright but it took over a year to finalize because he was placed with us as what’s called a legal risk placement, which means his biological parents could’ve taken him back with good behavior. It happens all the time. It just happened to us last month with a pair of sisters we had living with us for almost a year.

“Alright, let’s go to Uncle’s and see the goats.”

The apple falls from Jace’s hands, rolling a few feet away as he pushes himself to standing, chanting the word, “goats,” under his breath. As soon as he’s up, he’s off, one arm pumping faster than the other as he charges full speed ahead.

In the opposite direction.

Without his apple.

Chuckling, I bend down to scoop up the forgotten apple, then jog alongside my kid to scoop him up, too.

“Not so fast,” I say against his cheek, his greasy curls tickling my eyelashes enough for me to blink. He needs a bath. A real one. Soon. Drains are Jace’s current phobia. Well, his biggest one. Sponge baths have been keeping his body clean but not his hair—unfortunately.

“Fast,” he repeats. “Daddy fast.”

“That’s right.” I get him situated in the crook of my elbow so I can look him in the eye. “Daddy’s fast.”

“Mommy fast?”

“A little,” I say with a smirk, knowing if this gets back to her how offended she’ll be.

“Oh.” Jace’s face falls like I just delivered extremely disappointing news. “A wittle fast?”

“Yup, only a little fast. She used to be faster.” Decade-old memories surface, back when Angela used to run at the first hint of trouble, and I shake my head to clear it. Thankfully, it’s been a long time since she’s pulled anything like that.

“Oh?” He perks up a bit, playing with the collar of my shirt. “Why?”

“Because she doesn’t need to be anymore.”

“Why?”

I laugh at the reminder we’re not quite out of the “why” phase all toddlers go through, then sober thinking of a way to explain it. This conversation took a deeper dive than I was expecting.

“Because Mommy doesn’t have anywhere else she needs to go. She has everything she could ever want right here.” I snuggle him closer, my forehead against his. Angela does love our life. She loves us. She loves me.

Not enough to marry me, even after being together every day for the past ten years.

She hasn’t tried to leave me since our Creekwood days at least, so that has to count.

It does. It counts. She loves me.

I lower my voice to add, “And because Daddy’s faster.”

Jace’s small, dirty hands pat my cheeks. “Daddy fast.”

“Daddy’s faster,” I echo since the more times I say it, the greater my chances are of him repeating it back to his mother.

God, I hope she lets me have it. I fucking love when Angela’s fired up, thinking she needs to prove herself. I already know what she’s capable of, but I could go for a reminder. Or two. She may not be my wife—yet—but she’s the living embodiment of every fantasy I’ve ever had.