Page 89 of The Foul Out

He laughed. “Yeah.” Then he was dragging me along down the hall again.

And I wondered if what we had could really be this easy. Trust and laughter and support. Because that sounded almost too good to be true.

I knocked,though from the sound of the muffled voices, I wasn’t sure they could hear me.

Before I could try the knob, the door swung open, and Sam beamed up at me. “Hi.”

“Didn’t Mommy tell you that you shouldn’t be opening the door?” I crouched so we were eye to eye and gave him a warning frown.

He sighed. “Yes. But it was you, so it was fine,” he chirped and smiled, feigning innocence.

Head tilted, I hummed. “But what if it wasn’t me?”

“Then Mommy would be mad at me.” He glanced over his shoulder at the sound of raised voices.

“I understand that you don’t like the way broccoli smells when it’s cooking, but slamming your door and then hanging on the doorknob so I couldn’t turn it caused it to break.”

“I don’t care. I didn’t want you to cook broccoli.”

“I care that the doorknob is broken, and you should care that I’m upset.”

Sam winced. “It’s not going good here.”

Poor kid. My heart hurt for him. I remembered those nights. When I stayed out of the way because my mother was overwhelmed with Ryan.

“Give me a second, and then you and I can go on a mission.” I pushed to my feet and headed down the short hall, pulling out my phone and shooting off a text as I went.

Me: Come back.

Harper turned at the sound of my footsteps, and with a sigh, she held up the broken doorknob.

I peeked past her, eyeing Piper, who was sitting on her bed, arms crossed, frowning. She looked my way but glanced away again without making eye contact.

“Did you break Mommy’s door?”

Her shoulders sank slightly, and she curled in on herself. Piper didn’t like to be called out for her wrongdoings. It embarrassed her. So I had to be very careful with my reaction, otherwise the situation would only escalate.

“I thought Ashley gave you a Metros stuffed baseball to hit when you were mad.” One of the tenets of ABA therapy was replacement. Piper’s extreme anxiety in situations where she was melting down caused her actual fear, and often her fight response kicked in. So instead of fighting people and breaking things, a therapist would redirect her fight to something safer. And I had to give Ashley credit. A pillow emblazoned with the logo of one of our team’s biggest rivals was perfect for that.

Piper growled, but she didn’t lash out. Her eyes landed on the white pillow with the Metros’ logo. I could step in and mediate, but Harper had this, and it was important to show her that Isupported her in that. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t help in other ways.

I turned back to Harper and tipped her chin up. “You’re a good mom. You’ve got this.” I gave her a quick kiss. “Give me the door handle. Sam and I will go pick up a new one.”

For a moment, she just looked at me. I braced for ayou don’t have to, but she surprised me by dropping the brass knob into my palm, then turning back to Piper.

It might be dumb, but that felt like progress. Like trust. And I couldn’t help but smile as I put the knob in my coat pocket and headed back to get Sam.

“Shoes and coat, bud. We’re going out.”

My phone buzzed.

Cam: You fucked up already? I’m not even out of the neighborhood.

Me: No I did not. Sam and I are running an errand.

Cam: It better not be to a jewelry store again. We’ve been to sixty this week.

That had sucked. But it had paid off eventually, and we’d found the place where Harper had pawned her grandmother’s ring. Just an hour ago, I’d swung by and bought it. We located it a couple of days ago, but I had to wait for the seven-day waiting period to end.

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