Page 100 of When the Stars Fall
She laughed. When I reached the back porch, I spun around with my back to it. “Say goodbye to Grandma and Uncle Gideon.”
The kid knew when he was beaten. I looked over my shoulder. He lifted his head and waved. “Bye Grandma. Bye Uncle Gideon.”
“Goodbye, my sweet boy. I’ll see you on Saturday.”
Gideon looked up from his phone. “Bye buddy. Be good.”
“Will you video me?” Noah asked.
“Don’t I always? I miss you too much when I’m in New York.”
“Yeah. It’s lonely without me.”
“Sure is.”
Well, shit, what do you know? Gideon had a heart.
“Giddyup, horsey.” Noah slapped my back as I jogged around the side of the house to the driveway.
“Stop hitting,” Lila told him.
“I’m riding my horse. Go faster.”
I snickered. “Your mommy used to say that.”
“Oh my God. Stop.” But she was laughing.
Lila opened the back seat of a blue Volkswagen Jetta and I deposited her son in his car seat.
“I can do the seat belt,” she said, trying to nudge me out of the way.
“I’ve got it.” Pulling the strap over his body, I clipped it into place. He didn’t fight me on it. If anyone was worn out, it was him. I made sure he was good and secure before I lifted his hand and bumped my fist against his. “You did good out there. I bet you’re gonna be a good football player.”
He nodded with all the confidence of a four-year-old who still believed anything was possible. “A football player and a cowboy.”
Yet another reminder that he was his father’s son. “Be good for your mom.” I ruffled his sweaty hair. “Cowboys and football players don’t throw temper tantrums.”
He nodded. “Okay. Bye.”
Kids were so quick to forgive and forget. If only adults could do the same.
How in the hell had I managed to bond with Brody McCallister’s son? Not at all the way I’d expected things to happen today. It helped that he wasn’t here because I could guarantee that if he had been the whole evening would have been fraught with tension and more than likely, I would have excused myself and gone for a run instead of playing football with Noah.
I closed the door and turned to Lila who peered through the window, no doubt double-checking that her son was securely fastened.
“Thanks.” She gave me a small smile. “Has he worn you out?”
“Nope. I could go all night long. All. Night. Long, baby.”
Her cheeks flushed pink. “Oh my God, you need to stop saying things like that.”
Yeah, I needed to stop and remind myself that we were no longer a couple. What the fuck was I thinking? I didn’t even know what we were to each other anymore, if anything at all. For a little while, I’d almost forgotten that Noah was Brody’s kid.
She glanced at Noah. “I need to get going. So I guess...” She clasped her hands and rocked back on the heels of her white Converse. “I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah.” I stuffed my hands in my pockets to stop myself from touching her. “See you around.”
She hesitated a moment, her mouth opening to say something but she obviously thought better of it because she rounded the hood of her car without saying another word.
