Page 120 of Home Field Advantage
I grin. “Yeah?” She tips her chin. “Then I’ll be seeing you soon, honey. I’m going to get back to practice.”
“Okay.”
I give her hand another squeeze before jogging back to the field for practice.
CHAPTER 30
IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT, HONEY?
Dallas
“Daddy, can we have a movie theater night with Uncle Mitch and Uncle Ty?” she asks with prayer hands and puppy dog eyes. “Pretty please.”
“You always fall asleep twenty minutes into every movie, bug.”
“I won’t this time. I have all the energy flowing through my body tonight. My funcles are here!”
“Yeah, her funcles are here,” Ty adds with his hands on his hips.
“Funcle?”
“Yeah. Uncles, but cooler and obviously more fun.” Tyler shrugs.
I look to Mitch, who leans back on the couch and shakes his head. “You already know I had nothing to do with that.”
“Trust me. Well aware.”
“Pleaaaaseeeee,” she begs.
“Fine,” I say, grabbing the remote and clicking to the streaming service to let her pick the movie. “I’ll make some popcorn.”
“Yes!” she and Ty cheer in unison.
I swear, he’s forever a child at heart. He really should spend some time with Tucker while he’s in town because those two are the same person.
Once I enter the kitchen, reaching into the cabinet to grab the package of popcorn to throw in the microwave, a throat clears from the doorway. I find Mitch standing there with a look on his face.
“She’s definitely going to be asleep in twenty minutes,” he says.
“Yep.”
“Are you going next door?” He raises an eyebrow. I give him a knowing look, but avert my gaze. “We can watch Sage if you want to.”
“I did want to,” I admit. “But you guys are only in town for the weekend, and I haven’t seen you in months. Maybe after she goes to bed, we can sit on the back deck and catch up over a beer or something.”
He barks out a laugh. “We just drove sixteen hours here on little sleep because we left sometime in the middle of the night. Ty will be passed out the same time Sage is, and I’m going to end up right there along with them shortly after.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you should go next door and spend some time with your girl. At least that’s what I assume she is. I know your time here is going to come to an end soon. I also know you well enough to know that you can’t get enough of her. She’s different, and so are you. You want time with her, and you should go take it.”
My time here is going to come to an end soon.
His words hang in the air, and they sting like lemon juice on a paper cut. I’ve known this is the case. This was always supposed to be temporary—a reset.
But things have changed.
I didn’t plan for Poppy to come raging into my life like a tidal wave.
