Page 64 of Sliding Into Love
“Marshall showed up, drunk. He messed with the automatic pitching machine, and I got hit.”
Jase flinched.
There was more, but Ivy realized Ethan didn’t want to say more in front of Jase, so she changed the subject.
“Tell me about your new coach. You said you had a bad day? Did something else happen?” Ivy stopped for a moment, and Ethan didn’t speak. “With the new coach?” she pressed.
Ethan sighed.
“Yeah. She made us doyoga, Ivy. It washorrible.”
A chuckle sounded from the door.
“Emily’s methods have always been questionable, but they do get results.” The woman from the hallway stood with an older man in a worn-looking robe and slippers sitting in a wheelchair, trailing a rolling IV rack.
The pair looked familiar, but she’d never met them. Except…
His face was so like the man’s, and his eyes were almost identical to the woman’s.
Holy shitthose were hisparents.
This was happeningnow?
“What are you doing here?” Ethan’s voice was flat in a way Ivy had never heard.
“We came to see you.” Ethan’s mom’s brows pinched in the middle; the same way Ivy had seen Ethan’s pinch together.
“Why?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you come to see me? You didn’t have time earlier.”
Oh, shit, this was happening. Should Ivy take the kids and leave? When she began to move away, Ethan’s arm tightened around her waist, keeping her beside him.
“What? Oh, Ethan, no. Your father crashed the Mustang last week, did you know? And he was transferred here in an ambulance, and of course, they wouldn’t let me ride with him, but they couldn’t find him when I arrived, and that’s what was happening when you called. We were trying to find out if he’d been dropped off or if the ambulance had been delayed. I thought, well, anyway it’s all been sorted now.”
“Oh.” And then Ethan crumpled, leaning on Ivy for support.
“Ethan.” As if sensing something had happened, the older woman gave her son a curt nod, but her eyes were soft as she looked at him, then at the two children, and finally they landed on Ivy. “Are you going to introduce us to your family?”
“Um. What, Lau- Mom?” Ethan didn’t seem to follow, and he stared at his mother.
“Your family, dear.” Ethan’s mom gestured around the room while he sat in silence, still staring.
“Um. They’re not? I mean maybe one day, but—” Ethan’s ears turned bright red, and Ivy could have kissed him right there in front of his mother for being so adorably socially inept.
“But—” Laura gestured limply at Jase, and it fully clicked for Ivy.
With his dark hair and eyes, and his ever-present Hawks hat, Jase could easily be mistaken for Ethan’s son.
“Oh, no, uh—ma’am,” Ivy interjected. Unsure what to do, she nearly dropped into a curtsy. “This is Jase. He’s my foster son. And his sister, Janna.”
The woman turned her gaze onto Ivy.
“And who areyou?” Her question wasn’t rude or condescending, just curious.
But Janna chose that moment to jump in.
