Page 50 of Perfect Playbook

When I pull into the drive and my heart skips at seeing another car parked there and warm lights on to greet me, all I can think is that it might not take me so long to get used to this.

I throw my i7 into park, grab the packages from my trunk, and in a moment I’m heading through the front door.

“Hey, gang…” I greet them.

The TV plays some mystery-looking show, but the minute the door clicks shut behind me they turn around.

“Logan!” Nino jumps up and over the back of the couch and comes pattering over to me. “Thanks for my room!”

He wraps his tiny arms around my thigh, and a warmth so pure melts my heart.

He glances up at me. “I already started readingAround the World in Eighty Days. I wonder if Phileas Fogg will win the bet?”

I dart my eyes between them. “Wow, I didn’t know you’d be able to read that already. I thought it would be a good bedtime story. I loved it when I was, well, I read it when I was twelve?”

The kid will be readingmebedtime stories this time next year.

Antonio takes my hand that isn’t holding a shopping bag and leads me deeper in the house. I try to quickly shed my shoes near the door while walking with him.

“Fogg’s bet was for forty thousand pounds, and that’s fifty thousand four hundred and six dollars! But Mom said it would be way more in today’s money.”

Shay has now made her way in front of me and shoves her hands in her back pockets. There’s something about this pose that gets me every time.

“I had to help with a few words in the book, but his reading is…” She ruffles his hair. “It gets better every day, doesn’t it,mijo?”

He nods so hard his glasses slip down his nose. He pushes them up with his finger. An urge to bend down and gather him up into my arms to hug him hello overwhelms me. I just met the kid, but he feels right here. And, man, I love his enthusiasm. When I was younger, my dad used to say I was like a puppy. Throw me something and I just hadto go see what it was. Antonio and I have that in common. Curiosity.

Shay tosses a glance toward the kitchen, hands still bashfully in her pockets. Breasts still full and inviting me inside my own home that never felt like one before they were here.

“I heated up the dinner Tom sent. He said you’d be home at six, so it might be cold now.”

We head deeper into the house.

“Sorry I was late, I had to get some things at a shop.”

I follow Shay with my shopping bags in one hand, Nino leading by the other.

She leans toward me ever so slightly and mumbles quietly, “Nino is a hugger. Hope that’s okay.”

“You kidding? Love it. I’m one, too.”

We reach the kitchen. She hurries over to the oven and reaches inside with a towel to get the hot foil meal out for me.

“It’s still pretty warm actually.” She removes the card lid from my ready meal.

I melt inside. Nobody’s ever made dinner for me apart from my family.

It’s not that Shay cooked this, but it feels like it. She thought of me. She tried to time supper just right. Shay isn’t the type of woman who is out to please. Being considerate is her idea of decency, but when she pulls her hand away quickly so as to not let the steam burn her, I fire up inside like this ready meal means more than it does. Until now, it never quite hit me how the simple things can be the ones to make a person feel thought about.

Antonio climbs up on a stool and sits at the counter. “I had the meatballs, but they had spaghetti sauce on them. My mom makes them in soup.Albondigas. Mom’s taste better,but I like the containers the food comes in. It’s cool like a drive-thru. So it was fun even though it didn’t taste as nice.”

“Nino…” Shay buries her face in her hand.

“I’m sure your mom’s meatballs are a million times better. She’s a good cook.” I place the large plastic bag in my hand on the counter. “Which is why I had to buy her this.”

Shay’s eyes dance with confusion. “What’s that?”

“I said I’d finish your room off.”

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