Page 16 of Hart Breaker

“I don’t know her enough to make that call.” I open the fridge. “But I do know an ex is an ex for a reason.”

“Amen to that.” Sydney lifts her beer in the air. “I can’t wait to meet my next ex, so when that goes south, I can put both in a group message and send shit like, I don’t feel pretty today and can’t decide which one of you to blame.” Her voice drops and is menacing as she continues. “You two discuss.”

I chuckle as I turn to see who else needs another.

Sydney hip-checks Boone, who’s looking down at the counter. “It’s different when you have a little one. No judgment.”

“Yeah.” He nods. “I just want them both to be okay.”

Feeling like shit for not being supportive, I clear my throat. “You take care of them.”

“Damn right, I do.” His smile is there and gone in a snap, but the pride in his stance and voice is unmistakable.

I’m guessing he’s taking care of his brothers and Mom, too.

“Lily’s gonna know that, too,” Riley says to Boone.

He nods as he taps his fist to his chest. “She’s my whole heart. My number one.”

“I can’t wait to have kids.” Riley smiles back at him.

And that … doesn’t sit well with me. What the fuuuuck?

“Hart, where you go? You knight! Me day!” rings through the house. “I’m a bossesess! Lily, girl bossesess.” And then, “Daddy I godda pee-pee.”

Much like after our QB Cody Warren receives a snap, Boone and I both react the same way we would if we were on the field. I go wide, and he stays on the inside as he rounds the corner to the stairs.

If you ask an average man the question, what’s more terrifying than a six-foot-six, three-hundred-pound defensive lineman from the Kansas City Chiefs coming at you with murder in his eyes or a tiny two-year-old child, half-asleep, standing at the top of your stairs with, yeah, pretty much the same look in her eyes as they meet mine, an average man would say the linebacker.

Not the fucking case.

“You bad!” she yells at me, then buries her face in the stuffed cupcake.

Taking the stairs two at a time behind Boone, I say, “I’m sorry, Lily girl. I had to?—”

Sydney cuts me off from behind, “They had to come down because your daddy was working hard to find?—”

“Wovey!”

Boone scoops her up and runs to the bathroom.

“Daddy, no! You bad!”

“You don’t want to pee yourself when the nice ladies are here, do you?” he asks as he hurries into the bathroom.

“I wanna see ’em!”

“We’re not leaving, Miss Lily,” Sydney calls up to her. “We’ll be right here when you finish on the potty.”

We’re all in the hallway when Lily walks out, holding Boone’s hand. Her eyes stall on Sydney.

“Sydney, this is Lily; she’s my friend,” Riley says in a voice I’ve never heard her sassy ass use, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t do some sort of shit to my … balls.

Again, what the fuck?

She catches me looking at her and gives me a look like what?

And I give her a look like exactly.

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