Page 140 of Undisputed Player
I exhaled, squeezing Leo’s shoulder gently. “We’ll unpack together. Your dinosaurs will have their own kingdom by tonight.”
He didn't look upset, just sort of stunned, like he was waiting for someone to start laughing. After a moment, his eyes landed on me.
“My dinos?” he asked.
Jax answered before I could. “They’re safely in your new room. Cross my heart.”
Leo accepted this, hands brushing dusty surfaces as he wandered further in. He was very good with change; he had to be after his life was uprooted, and he came to live with me.
I swallowed hard and stepped into the center of the room. It was strange to see it so empty. The outlines where furniture once stood were etched into the worn wood like ghosts.
The old yard-sale table was gone, and the corner of the living room where we once set up a blanket fort now looked cramped and oddly small.
But we’d made this place work. We stitched a life out of nothing here.
"I never thought I'd leave," I said softly. "I grew up in places like this. Wherever we could afford. I never imagined..." I trailed off, gesturing vaguely at him, at the life he represented.
Jax pushed off the doorframe, coming to stand behind me, his hands settling on my shoulders. "You deserved better than this, Estelle. You and Leo both."
I knelt briefly at the windowsill where Leo lined up his schoolplants. The paint had chipped years ago, and I always meant to fix it. I brushed my fingers over the edge, feeling the way my heart pinched as nostalgia twisted and rethreaded itself into something new.
Then I stood. Tall and ready.
We’d outgrown it, like roots reaching beyond their pot.
I turned just in time to see Leo peering into his old room, face unreadable. "It’s weird," he admitted. “It’s just walls now.”
“It’s not home anymore,” I said gently.
And that was okay. We had somewhere with family and people who loved us. Even if it looked like this, that would be more of a home than anything else we had before.
I wandered to the front door, peering outside to look at the street one last time. The peeling paint, the cracked concrete where I’d confronted Damon’s men so many times.
I stepped out onto the porch… only to find the familiar slouch of a sleaze coming up the walkway.
Owen.
His face was the same: ruddy, eyes too slick, shirt straining at the buttons over a belly he tucked in. His combover was greased stiff, and the same cloying cologne hung thick around him, curling in the humid air.
He paused when he saw me, surprise flickering—and then, irritation.
“Well, you made it,” he said flatly. “Didn’t think you’d bother with goodbyes.”
“I didn’t think anyone would care,” I replied, tone pleasant, chin high.
Owen took another step. “You didn’t even leave a note. Furniture’s gone, movers trucked up like you were running from something. Guess you found yourself an upgrade.”
I held my ground, recalling Jax’s‘I don’t do half-measures’talk. “You were paid, weren’t you?”
His face was flushed with anger, but there was something else there, too. Disappointment, maybe. "I had to find out from the neighborsthat you were leaving. Had some suit hand me a check and tell me the place was vacant."
I couldn’t care less. The sleaze got his money.
He moved closer, too close, his aftershave cloying in the humid air. "We had an arrangement, Estelle. You’re supposed to give notice. Thirty days, remember?"
His gaze dropped to my mouth, then lower. "Though I suppose we could work something out. You always were my favorite tenant."
My stomach turned at his audacity, but before I could respond, the door slammed behind me. Jax filled the frame, his presence immediately dominating the small porch. Owen's eyes widened as he took in Jax's tailored clothes, the Rolex on his wrist, and the cold fury in his blue eyes.
