Chapter 12 Chose me
RORY POV
Getting him into the bath was an achievement.
Getting him to stay in it was a negotiation.
“I don’t like the bubbles on my face,” he announced, leaning dramatically away from me as I tried to wash his hair.
“They’re not on your face yet.”
“They might get there.”
“Liam.”
“What if they go in my eyes.” He whined.
“They won’t go in your eyes if you close them.”
“What if I close them and something happens while they’re closed.”
I looked at this child. “Like what?”
He thought about it very seriously. “A monster.”
“There are no monsters in this bathroom.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that.”
“How.”
“Because monsters are scared of bubbles,” I said without missing a beat.
He considered this. “Really?”
“Everyone knows that.”
He sat very still and let me wash his hair.
I was rinsing it out when he spoke again, completely casual, like the question had been sitting there waiting for a gap. no.
“Rory, why do you talk like that sometimes?”
I paused. “Like what?”
“Like the words get stuck.”
I looked at him. He was looking back at me with genuine curiosity. No cruelty in it. No discomfort. Just a six year old asking a question because he wanted to understand.
“Sometimes my words need a little longer to come out,” I said. “That’s all.”
He nodded slowly, processing it. “Like how I needed longer to talk again?”
I stared at him.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “Exactly like that.”
He seemed satisfied with that. He picked up a handful of bubbles and blew them off his palm watching them float.
“I think that’s okay,” he said. “Taking longer.”
I turned away for a second under the pretense of reaching for his towel.
I was wrapping him in his towel when he looked up at me with the expression of someone who had just remembered something important.
“Is there any gist you want to tell me Rory? Anything fun that happened when you were home?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You want gist?”
“I want gist,” he confirmed seriously.
“You first,” I said. “Anything fun happen here yesterday after I left?”
He thought about it while I dried his hair.
“Mateo came,” he said.
“Who’s Mateo?”
“Daddy’s advisor. He comes sometimes and plays with me.” He paused. “But yesterday when he came he saw you leaving and he said he doesn’t like you.”
I stopped drying his hair. “He said that?”
“Yes.” Liam said it very matter of factly. “He said something about you to daddy and daddy told him to mind his business.”
I filed that away.
“Well,” I said, resuming, “I don’t like Mateo.”
Liam’s head swiveled toward me immediately.
“Really?”
“Really.”
He was quiet for exactly two seconds.
“I don’t like him anymore too,” he announced.
“Liam—”
“I don’t like him.”
“You said he plays with you.”
“He doesn’t like you,” Liam said simply, “so I don’t like him. I’ll only like him again if he likes you.”
He said it the way you stated facts. Like the sky was blue and water was wet and his position on Mateo was now permanently established.
I tried very hard not to let it sink in completely because I could feel the tears threatening and I refused to cry in a six year old’s bathroom over a loyalty I didn’t deserve.
He chose me.
Getting him dressed involved a fifteen minute debate about whether the blue shirt or the green shirt was superior which I resolved by putting the blue one on him while he was still talking about the green one. He looked down at himself mid sentence and accepted it without comment.
I was wrapping a small blue scarf around his neck, matching the one I had on, which had been entirely his idea, he had pointed at mine and then pointed at his drawer with the specific energy of someone who had already decided when he looked up at me.
“Now your gist,” he said.
I considered it for a moment. Then decided.
“My ex ambushed me outside my apartment,” I said.
Liam spun around so fast the scarf nearly unraveled. “What? That jerk?”
“That jerk,” I confirmed.
“What did he want?”
“To apologize apparently.”
Liam’s face communicated exactly what he thought of that.
“I did something stupid,” I continued, smoothing his collar down. “I told him I have a millionaire boyfriend who’s better than him. And I promised to show up with him to a friend’s birthday party next week.”
Liam blinked.
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you have a millionaire boyfriend who’s going to the birthday with you?”
I looked at this child. Then I laughed despite everything. “Of course not. I was bluffing.”
Liam was quiet for a moment. He looked down at the matching scarves and then back up at me with an expression I couldn’t fully read.
“I wish you weren’t,” he muttered.
My hearing aids caught every word.