Page 36 of Hawk

“Go get cleaned up,” I tell her. “Get to your room and get in bed.”

As soon as I step inside the room the tension in my shoulders subsides. Sam is sitting in his bed, covered by a blanket with dirt bikes on them. The first time I met him, he was wearing a Harley shirt, and now his bed is covered with bikes. Something tells me this little guy, and I have something in common.

“Hey there.” I take a seat at the foot of his bed.

He rubs the sleep from his eyes, “Hi.” His voice is tiny, hoarse with sleep. “Where’s Mommy?” he asks as he drops his hands in his lap.

“She’s not feeling well.” The news makes his eyebrows shoot up, and he pulls back the covers. His little legs struggle to get out of the bed. “Hey now, it’s all right. She’s okay. There’s no need to worry, little man.” He stops trying to move from the bed but continues to look at me with his brows creased. He’s studying me. I pat his head. “What’s with the frown?”

He purses his lips. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m just visiting. It’s been a long time since your mom, and I got to talk. What made you wake up?”

“Bad dreams. Monsters and all that.” He draws a deep breath in and huffs out of his chest, making his hair that’s covering his forehead blow up. “Petey from school says that I’m a baby because monsters scare me.” He looks down and picks at his blankets. “But I can’t help it. I can’t control when the monsters come.”

I scoot closer to him. “You know what? I bet Petey makes fun of you because he has monsters, too. He’s probably just as afraid of them as you are.”

He looks up, eyes tight as he thinks about what I just said. “You think so?”

I give him a chuckle. “I know so because it happened to me when I was your age. My best friend did the same thing to me.”

“He did?”

“Yep, all because he didn’t want to get made fun of from his older brother, so he opened his big mouth and told his brother and his brother’s friends that I was afraid of monsters that hid under my bed.”

“Wow, that wasn’t very nice.”

“Kids aren’t always nice, and sometimes they don’t know any better.”

“Well, what did you do?”

“I punched him.” His eyes widen at my confession.

“Wow. And he was still your friend?”

“Yep. To this day, he’s my best friend.”

“Mommy says I’m not supposed to fight, so I don’t think punching him is gonna work.”

I know that I have no experience with kids, but the thought of Sam practically getting bullied irritates the shit out of me. “I’m sure what your mom says is probably the right way to handle it. But I’m telling you what I did when that happened to me.”

“Hawk?” He scoots his little body back under the covers, letting me know that he’s must be all right with his nightmare.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“How did you get rid of the monsters?”

“My dad.”

I don’t elaborate. I don’t need to tell him that my father wasn’t the type to check under the bed and in the closet. He wasn’t the man who would sit with me until my fears had subsided. He was the type who told me I was his son, his blood and there was no way he was going to have a son that was a pussy.

Sam’s shoulders fall. “I don’t have a dad,” he whispers.

Damn, this kid. “But you have a mom.”

He brings his gaze to mine. “Yeah. She’s pretty great.”

He doesn’t say anything else. I watch as he pulls the comforter over his shoulder and turns away from me. Taking that as my sign, I lift myself from the bed. As soon as I wrap my hand around the doorknob, I hear his voice.