there isn’t an ounce of me that’s prepared for the way those tears barrel unexpectedly down his cheeks, or the way he leaps from the chair straight into my fucking arms, wrapping his entire body around me and clinging to me like I gave him the whole world and not an old hat. I’m not prepared for it, but I sink into it, absorbing the way I hear his little heart pounding in his chest, the way his fingers curl around my sweater, the way his tears warm my neck. And then he whispers a single word, buries it against my shoulder, a sound so raw it feels like my heart cracks wide open. “Emmett.”
