“The truth. Is it that hard to answer my question?”
“You tell me,” she challenged, her greens meeting my blues and it made me happy to see that I hadn’t completely destroyed her. She was still full of fire and sass. Still so fierce and defiant. “Are you happy, Jude?”
Turnabout is fair play. I couldn’t answer the question any more than she could.
“Run, Noah, run,” Lila shouted.
He looked over his shoulder to see if I was gaining on him. That was his downfall. He stumbled and fell to his knees, the Nerf football still clutched to his chest. I pretended that I couldn’t catch up. He was on his feet again, running and laughing. Should have known that Lila’s boy would be tough. Whenever he fell down, he jumped to his feet and kept going without even shedding a tear.
“Touchdown,” Jesse yelled, simulating the noise of a crowd. “Noah McCallister has scored again.”
Noah spiked the ball the way I’d showed him and did a little victory dance. So damn cute. Then he flopped on the ground and panted like a dog. I loomed over him and he grinned up at me. Somewhere along the way, he’d forgotten that I was the bad guy.
“I beat you,” he said.
“You sure did. You know what happens to winners?”
His eyes grew wide. “They get ice cream?”
I laughed.
“No more ice cream,” Lila said. “It’s time to go home for a bath and bedtime.”
He kicked his feet and pounded his fists on the ground. “No!” When Lila tried to grab him, he jumped to his feet and darted away from her. “I’m not going to bed. I wanna play.”
I scooped him up and tossed him over my shoulder, jogging across the field while he pounded his little fists against my back and screamed. I ignored his tantrum.
“Your old party trick,” Lila said, referring to the way I was carrying her son.
“He weighs about as much as you did.”
She laughed. When I reached the back porch, I spun around with my back to it. “Say goodbye to Grandma and Uncle Gideon.”
The kid knew when he was beaten. I looked over my shoulder. He lifted his head and waved. “Bye Grandma. Bye Uncle Gideon.”
“Goodbye, my sweet boy. I’ll see you on Saturday.”
Gideon looked up from his phone. “Bye buddy. Be good.”
“Will you video me?” Noah asked.
“Don’t I always? I miss you too much when I’m in New York.”
“Yeah. It’s lonely without me.”
“Sure is.”
Well, shit, what do you know? Gideon had a heart.
“Giddyup, horsey.” Noah slapped my back as I jogged around the side of the house to the driveway.
“Stop hitting,” Lila told him.
“I’m riding my horse. Go faster.”
I snickered. “Your mommy used to say that.”
“Oh my God. Stop.” But she was laughing.
Lila opened the back seat of a blue Volkswagen Jetta and I deposited her son in his car seat.
“I can do the seat belt,” she said, trying to nudge me out of the way.
“I’ve got it.” Pulling the strap over his body, I clipped it into place. He didn’t fight me on it. If anyone was worn out, it was him. I made sure he was good and secure before I lifted his hand and bumped my fist against his. “You did good out there. I bet you’re gonna be a good football player.”
He nodded with all the confidence of a four-year-old who still believed anything was possible. “A football player and a cowboy.”
Yet another reminder that he was his father’s son. “Be good for your mom.” I ruffled his sweaty hair. “Cowboys and football players don’t throw temper tantrums.”
He nodded. “Okay. Bye.”
Kids were so quick to forgive and forget. If only adults could do the same.
How in the hell had I managed to bond with Brody McCallister’s son? Not at all the way I’d expected things to happen today. It helped that he wasn’t here because I could guarantee that if he had been the whole evening would have been fraught with tension and more than likely, I would have excused myself and gone for a run instead of playing football with Noah.
I closed the door and turned to Lila who peered through the window, no doubt double-checking that her son was securely fastened.
“Thanks.” She gave me a small smile. “Has he worn you out?”
“Nope. I could go all night long. All. Night. Long, baby.”
Her cheeks flushed pink. “Oh my God, you need to stop saying things like that.”
Yeah, I needed to stop and remind myself that we were no longer a couple. What the fuck was I thinking? I didn’t even know what we were to each other anymore, if anything at all. For a little while, I’d almost forgotten that Noah was Brody’s kid.
She glanced at Noah. “I need to get going. So I guess...” She clasped her hands and rocked back on the heels of her white Converse. “I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah.” I stuffed my hands in my pockets to stop myself from touching her. “See you around.”
She hesitated a moment, her mouth opening to say something but she obviously thought better of it because she rounded the hood of her car without saying another word.
Long after her car had disappeared from view, I was still standing in the driveway, wondering what she would have said.
I miss you, Jude. I still love you. Let’s run away together and fuck each other’s brains out. We’ll hide away from the world and stay in bed for an entire weekend like we did when you came home on leave that first time.
Doubt she would have said any of that. In all likelihood, if she ever thought of me at all she remembered the bad shit. But before all that, there was friendship and there was love. So much love.
I shook off my memories and watched the sun set over the lush green hills, the sky painted pink and orange, the bluebonnets and wildflowers a ribbon of color in the field across our two-lane road. The air smelled sweeter here. Scented with
