Page 127 of Unspoken Words
My mopey toddler stomped the final steps to within arm’s length, his head falling back to look up at me, his bottom lip pouting.
I pouted back at him. “Time to go, buddy.”
“Don’t want to.”
Lilah ran her hand over his head then tickled his chin. “Say goodbye to Daddy, and Mummy will stay a little longer and push you on the swing.”
His little eyes lit up. “Bye, Dad.” He hugged my leg then ran off toward the playground again.
“Bye, mate.” I waved, chuckling, but he didn’t look back.
“I love him so much,” Lilah said, her voice strained. “He’s all I’ve got, really.” She stepped up beside me, a small smile on her face as her eyes followed our son. “I’m gonna be better. For him and for me.” Swivelling side-on to face me, she crossed her arms over her chest. “But I will say this … don’t let your relationship with her affect your relationship with him, because if it does, Iwillcause shit.”
I turned to face her too. “That’s the thing, it won’t affect it, because I have room in this crazy heart,” I said, placing my hand on my chest, “for them both.” I pointed at Lilah “There’s even a tiny spot for you.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Even me, huh?”
“Yeah, even you. You’re a part of my life, Lilah. But it’s your choice to be a healthy part or a part that poisons everything it touches, including Max.”
She looked down at her feet then back up at me. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Chapter Thirty
Ellie
“Where are we going?” Iasked Byron, as he zipped up the one and only cocktail dress I’d packed in my case.
He handed me a pair of nude heels. “Just somewhere nice.”
“This nice?” I pointed to the fitted, full-length, black velvet dress I was wearing. “I thought you said it was somewhere local.”
“I did. And, yes,thatnice.”
I assessed myself in the mirror. “I just feel a little overdressed.”
Byron placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face him. “You look stunning, and you’re not overdressed for what I’ve planned.”
I huffed, still unsure. As far as I knew, there was nowhere this fancy close by. “If you say so.”
“I do. Now, what about me?” He fixed his collar and waggled his eyebrows.
“Very suave, Mr Grayson.”
Tucking a loose curl behind my ear that I’d deliberately left segregated from the bun pinned high on my head, he nodded his approval and kissed the tip of my nose. “Perfect. Let’s go.”
We said goodbye to Mum and Dad and borrowed Mum’s car. She seemed nervous, but I reassured her during our departing hug that Byron was a good driver and that she had nothing to worry about. Mum was the worriest of worrywarts, though, so I found her hand-on-her-heart anxious puppy-dog-eyes demeanour, as we pulled out of the driveway, amusing.
“She looks so nervous,” I said with a chuckle. “God, she really must love this car.”
Byron gripped the steering wheel. “It’s a nice car.”
I sensed a hint of trepidation in his voice and shook my head. “Not you too? Geez, don’t worry. Just drive like you normally do.”
An awkward silence settled in the car, made even more awkward by the hum of the engine. So I turned the dial of the radio and stopped on a station that was playing a new song by a young American artist called Britney Spears.
