Page 50 of Make Your Move

He knows the loss I experienced with my mother.

He knows the importance of fleeting moments.

“How was your day?” I ask the two of them as Posey looks up at me with more ice cream around her mouth. “Did you and Lincoln have a good day?”

Posey eagerly nods before she rattles off the things the two of them did. Lincoln took her to the park, they had a tea party, and he took her to the ice rink. Posey’s face lights up as she tells me that he skated her around because there weren’t any skates that were her size.

I look at Lincoln. He told me he had nothing today and could watch her. The last thing I wanted to do was inconvenience him. “You had practice?”

He gives me a coy smile and shrugs his shoulders. “I did, but we made it work.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have burdened you with watching her.”

He stares at me for a moment as he sets his spoon down in his bowl. “Because you didn’t burden me, Nova. She had a great time seeing the guys and getting toted around on the ice by everyone.” He pauses for a moment, looking at Posey before he looks at me. “Our coach’s daughter was there because she’s interning for the organization, and she kept an eye on Poe while we went through our drills.”

Posey is filled with smiles and giggles as she hangs on every last word that falls from Lincoln’s lips. “Mommy, look!” she says with excitement as she quickly ducks under the table, grabs her small backpack and comes back to me. I watch her for a moment as she digs inside of it and pulls something from it. “I got a pfuck!”

She holds up the black piece of rubber, handing it to me as I look at it. I turn it in my hands, flipping it over to the other side when I see a little note written on it.

For my favorite girl.

#7 LM

Those damn tears prick the corners of my eyes as I look up at Lincoln across the table. “You signed it for her.”

“I thought she might like to have one from her favorite player,” he says softly with a wink before he smiles at my daughter. “She’s special,” he tells me, his voice quiet and filled with emotion as he looks back at me again. “Just like you, supernova.”

Well, fuck.

If I wasn’t already a melted puddle, I certainly am now.

I’m at a loss for words, but the blush creeping across my cheeks says enough. Lincoln continues to watch me as pushes his spoon through his ice cream and lifts it to his mouth. I stare at him, not breaking eye contact as he slides it into his mouth and licks it clean. The thought of his tongue on my flesh breaks through my thoughts, and I can’t think about that right now.

We’re in public, and Posey is with us.

“I’m—uh—I’m going to go get some ice cream,” I suddenly declare as my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I clear my throat, smiling at Posey. “I’ll be right back, baby.”

“Otay, Mommy,” she says with a smile as she licks her lips.

I glance at Lincoln, and he gives me a devious grin as he continues to eat his ice cream, acting like he’s so goddamn innocent. Leaving the two of them there, I head over to the counter and get in line, resisting the urge to look over at them. My heart pounds erratically in my chest—a series of palpitations that make me question whether I need to see a cardiologist.

Lincoln Matthews is terrible for my health.

“Nova?”

My body freezes at the sound of his voice. My heart falls into my stomach as my spine straightens on its own, each vertebra stacking over the other. I lied…this man is the one who is terrible for my health.

I slowly turn around, swallowing hard as I find myself face to face with Dane. The man I gave far too much of my time and attention to. The man I thought would have at least called once to check in on his daughter.

My stomach holds on to my heart and falls to the fucking floor as my hands travel down his arm to his hand that is holding the hand of a small child. My eyes flash to his and then to the woman who steps up to the side of him. There’s a massive diamond on her ring finger, coupled with a wedding band. The kid walks around Dane to the woman and she lifts him into her arms as he points to the ice cream counter.

She says something to her husband, but I don’t hear a single thing she says before she walks the small child over to look at the flavors.

“Dane.”

His name is barely audible, and I try to push the pain away that’s filling my chest.

My ex is standing in front of me with a whole new family while the little girl who he helped to conceive is sitting across the room without a single memory of this man.

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