Page 151 of Falling Stars

“Aww.” She hands Ella to her dad and hugs me. “Remember what Mav told you. Just have fun.”

Fun. Okay. If I don’t hyperventilate and pass out, it’s possible.

“Did I tell you?” I whisper to Paige. “Guess who Sean wants to ask out?”

Her eyes widen. “Who?”

“Vera. He even asked for my permission.”

“That’s adorable. What did you say?”

“I said he has my blessing. I’m obviously getting ahead of myself here, but she’d be an awesome stepmother to Leo if they get to that point.”

“Totally. Yay! I’m so happy. Because it would suck if he dated someone terrible.” She takes a sip of her soda. “Do you think Vera’s into him?”

“I hope so. I’ve seen them talking when he comes to the salon to drop off Leo, but he didn’t ask her out because he wanted to make sure I was cool with it first.”

“That’s great.”

Sean’s grown a lot since we broke up. Having a kid will do that to you, I suppose.

One of the assistant coaches pops up next to me and grins. “It’s time.”

Holy crap. This is crazy. I hand Leo to my mom and stand.

“You got this!” Paige squeals and grabs my mom’s hand. They’re grinning like fools.

They’re awfully excited about this.

I glance at the stands as we head down the stairs. Noticeably absent from the festivities are the Ashburys. After Lorraine wascharged for kidnapping Leo, one of Judd’s tech guys was also arrested for helping her, though he claims he only did it because she blackmailed him. He’s the one who hacked my security system and messed with the footage.

Although I still wrestle with guilt for cancelling that security company, Mav insists I helped save Leo by installing that third camera. And because I accidentally saved those files in the default folder on my computer instead of where footage from the other two cameras was saved, the hacker didn’t see it.

Lorraine’s facing third degree felony charges for kidnapping and stalking, respectively, and could face up to ten years in prison for each charge. Her attorney claims she had a mental breakdown that caused her to fixate on Leo and stalk me.

Whatever the case, she’s a sick woman, and I’m glad she can’t terrorize anyone else.

I’m now working with the other shop owners to have additional cameras installed along the front and back of our block for extra security.

And while the sheriff could never prove that Nicole was involved, she was recently arrested for misappropriation of funds after she stole money that was allocated for that student trip to Paris. The school fired her the next day.

Too bad, so sad.

Paige is interviewing to take over as cheer coach, which she’ll be awesome at. And I’d much rather have Paige here at the high school than Nicole, that little twatwaffle.

After Kira got accused of snatching my baby, she realized she must really seem off her rocker and started seeing a therapist. I hope they talk about her stalker tendencies. I see her sometimes when she visits her family, but we keep a healthy distance from each other.

When I reach the field, I beeline it to the huddle where Mavis talking to his players. When they break, all the boys are grinning.

“Hey.” I wave.

They elbow each other and push Mav, and he mutters something to them, and they stop. When he spots me, his eyes light up. “Hey, babe. You ready?”

“I think so.”

“Did you visualize?” he asks as he wraps his arm around my shoulders and walks me onto the field.

“Yes.”

---