“You’re lookin’ at buyin’ a house,” I reminded him.

“There’s always gonna be houses. But there’ll only be this one opportunity to take a newly-turned eleven-year-old boy to his first Colts game.”

That feel hit my eyes, and when it did, it hit simultaneously in my throat and my belly.

Merry’s face warmed.

He knew what I was feeling.

And he knew me, so he didn’t say shit about it.

He asked, “So, you gonna ask Feb for the day off?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna ask Feb for the day off.”

His hands stopped drifting on my back and he wrapped his arms around me. “Then I’ll get three tickets.”

I shoved my face in his neck and muttered, “That’d be cool, Merry.”

We lay there together, connected, a girl who never allowed herself to dream, lying on top of a dream come true.

When it was time, Merry slid me up to slide himself out of me. He shifted us. He shifted the covers. He went to the bathroom to deal with the condom. And he came back, shifting us so I was exactly where I’d been before he’d moved me.

Lying on top of a dream come true.

“Why Rivers?”

Merry asked that, and hearing it, I lifted my head to look at him again.

“Why what?”

“Rivers, baby. You could have picked any last name you wanted. I like it. It’s cool. But why’d you pick Rivers?”

I shrugged, dropped my head, and nuzzled my face in his throat again while giving him the simple answer.

“I like water.”

“You like water?”

I nodded against his neck and gave him more.

“Mom’s always been a waitress. Dad’s always been a deadbeat. She couldn’t give me a lot, but she tried to make sure every summer we went on vacation. Without any money, we didn’t go far and we didn’t have much. Shitty motels. Diner food. But she did her best. And she always found water. Driving us to some lake. Putting our asses on a Greyhound down to Florida and hitting some seedy hotel, but one that was on a beach. We didn’t give a shit it was seedy or cheap. I was an asshole to her, but not on vacation. We had fun. We relaxed. We forgot life sucked.”

I lifted my head to look at him and kept talking.

“Good times. The only really good times probably for the both of us that weren’t clouded by the shit of life or my bent to be a pain in her ass. So I like water. Maybe it’s because I just like water. But I think it’s because Mom busted her ass to give me those times and it means something to me because my mom means something to me. And because it reminds me she gave me the most important thing I ever got—all I need to be a good mom to the kid I got. I couldn’t call myself Cher Lake or Cher Ocean or Cher Beach. So I picked Rivers. It works.”