Page 138 of The Home Game

The minute Matty walked into the kitchen, Antoni took one look and knew something was wrong.

“Hey, everyone!” Matty called out, smiling, but there wasn’t the same bounce to his step that there’d been this morning when he left.

Antoni’s parents called a “hello” from the dining room table, the kids hollering their greetings and begging him to come look at what they made.

“I’ll be there in one sec,” Matty promised. “Let me say hi to your Uncle Antoni first.”

“Hey.” Antoni paused in the middle of unloading the dishwasher as Matty approached and snagged his hand. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Well, it will be. I’ll tell you all about it later,” Matty said, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. But he leaned down to press a kiss to Antoni’s cheek.

“Okay.” Antoni squeezed Matty’s hand before he let go. “Sure. Whenever you’re ready. My parents will be leaving soon. They were cleaning up after the craft project they did earlier.”

“Aww, crafts sound fun. I’ll go say hi to the kids and then after your parents go, you can tell me how your day went. Sound good?”

“Yeah, sounds great.” Still concerned, Antoni watched Matty amble over to the dining room table.

“Thanks for staying late, Eliza and Enzo. We had an unexpected team meeting,” Matty said with a strained smile.

Enzo glanced up from his laptop and shrugged. “No bother at all.”

“We’re having fun,” Eliza said, running an affectionate hand over River’s hair. “Even if I had to remind someone that just because something looks like frosting, that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to eat it like frosting.”

River giggled.

“Whatcha workin’ on?” Matty asked, crouching between River and Eli.

“Paper mache!” Eli said.

“Ooh, show me what you made?”

Antoni’s heart twinged because, God, it was clear Matty’d had a rough day and yet, he was still so sweet and attentive. He could have easily brushed everyone off and gone to work out or hide in the bedroom. He could have pretended like he had somewhere else to be or something else to do.

But he was here, listening to the kids chatter about their work like that was the only thing he wanted to do at the moment.

A surge of affection welled up in Antoni’s throat and he pressed his fingertips to his mouth.

Today had been weird for him.

All of the gossip at school about their sudden wedding had led to a ton of questions from people he worked with and he’d spent the day alternately worried about what this meant for him and the kids and the custody suit, and how it was impacting Matty.

A sudden team meeting didn’t seem like a good sign of how Matty’s day had gone. What if he regretted this already? He cared about the kids, cared about Antoni too, but this was asking so much of him.

After the kids were done sharing their work, Matty stood, looking around. “And where are the other two?”

“Alexis is working on homework in her room,” Eliza said, gathering the supplies for the craft project and packing them into the tote bad she’d brought over. “And Reese is having tummy time.”

Antoni walked over to where Reese was on his belly on a blanket on the floor. He squirmed around, happily watching everything with bright, curious eyes as Antoni scooped him up.

“You know, I think you might start crawling any day now, mister,” he said as he carried him over to Matty. “And here you go. I think you might need some baby snuggles, Matty.”

The look of pure relief in Matty’s eyes when he settled Reese against his chest made Antoni want to kiss him. He really was a sweetheart, wasn’t he?

“Crawling?” Matty asked, looking surprised. “Really?”

Eliza nodded. “Yes. I think so too. He’s pushing himself up on his arms and scooting around quite a bit. It’s not quite a crawl but it’s not far off.”

“Aww, well you better do it when I’m home, buddy,” Matty said, kissing the top of Reese’s head. “Because I want to see that!”

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