Little Pleasures (Paddle Creek College Book 3) by HJ Welch

Author:HJ Welch [Welch, HJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

Ruben

Despite all my big talk at O’Toole’s the other night, I’m stupidly nervous by the time the day of the wedding rolls around. I don’t want to mess anything up or make anything uncomfortable for Xander. I don’t want Joe to hate me or misunderstand my intentions, and in spite of hearing several quite unpleasant things about the bride and Felicia’s family in general, I don’t actually want to cause a fuss on anyone’s special day, either.

“It’s going to be fine,” I grumble as I fight with my tie. I’ve been wrestling with it with the help of my bathroom mirror for a good ten minutes now but to no avail. It still looks stupid.

“Hey, Daddy,” Xander says with a soft knock on the door. “Are you okay? We need to leave soon.”

I glance at my watch and grimace. What he means is we should have left five minutes ago. It’s okay. So long as there’s no traffic through town, we should still be fine to get to the church in time. In fact, it’ll probably be better not to be awkwardly mingling beforehand. But I don’t want to risk anything going wrong out of my control and then us being late. Felicia would definitely act like Xander did it on purpose.

“I’ll just leave the tie,” I grunt and go to pull it off altogether. But Xander quickly steps forward and places his hands on mine, stilling me.

“Can I have a try?” he asks.

I nod, cross because I’m the one who should be looking after him. But he does that adorable thing he does when he’s coloring and sticks the little pink tip of his tongue through his teeth while he’s concentrating, and soon enough, the tie is perfectly done.

I lean down and capture his mouth for a kiss, my tension and nerves already feeling better. “Thank you, baby boy,” I say against his lips. “You look gorgeous, by the way.”

I haven’t seen him in a suit before. It’s nothing flashy, but he still looks dapper, and I love it. He blushes so prettily and smiles at me. “Thank you, Daddy. I was hoping we could get a nice photo of us all dolled up.”

My heart aches. “That’s a lovely idea, sweetheart.” And it is. But it’s also more than that. It’s telling me that he’s as invested in this relationship as I am. If we take that photo, will he want to show it to people? To put it in a frame? Where? In this house?

Would he consider moving in with me so we’d get to enjoy it together?

I know it’s far too early to be suggesting enormous things like that, but it honestly kills me whenever he has to go back to that place where he’s unwelcome and rarely fed. I’m aware he has his half-sister, but she’s just a kid and in the middle of it all enough as it is. I just know his life would be so much happier and easier if he was here with me.

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