Page 94 of Exposed

My phone started ringing.

I’d said what I needed to. I rejected his call and started on another batch of brownies. Hopefully the team would be hungry today.

“Mommy?”

“Yes?” I stopped stirring when I saw his face. I’d been stirring too hard again. I’d had a bad habit of doing that recently.

He glanced at the spoon in my hand and then back at me. “When’s Coach coming back?”

“I’m…I’m not sure.” When he’d left this morning he said he’d see me later. I didn’t know if that meant at practice. Or after work. Or…some other time soon.

“Can he come back now?”

“He’s at work right now. But we’ll see him later this afternoon.”

“Can we call him?”

I put my elbows on the counter to get on eye level with Jacob. “You want to call him?”

“Yessie.”

I could never say no to him when he said that. And honestly, I was happy that Jacob wanted to talk to Matt. “Okay, let’s call him. But don’t be upset if he doesn’t answer, okay? He has meetings and things.”

I hit Matt’s name in my phone and put it on speaker. I expected it to go straight to voicemail, but he picked up in two rings.

“Miss me already?” Matt said in a very seductive tone.

“Hiya, Coach,” Jacob said. He didn’t seem to notice that Matt was definitely talking to me.

“Oh.” Matt cleared his throat. And then he coughed. “Hey, kiddo. Did you steal your mom’s phone?”

“No. Mommy let me call you.”

“Hey,” I said, stifling a laugh. “Jacob wanted to call and say hello.”

“No,” Jacob said. “I called because we need you, please.”

“Is everything okay?” Matt asked. A bell chimed. It sounded like he’d just stepped on the elevator.

“Everything’s fine,” I said and looked at Jacob.

“Nooooo. We need you.”

Jacob was used to Miller having a bit of flexibility in his schedule. But Matt had already been missing a lot of work since I’d been back in town. And I knew he was busy. “I think he just misses you,” I said. “But we’re baking brownies and everything is fine.”

“Noooo.”

“Jacob, Matt’s at work. He can’t come home right now.”

“I can come,” Matt said. “Just give me a few minutes. I’m heading outside right now.”

“That’s really not necessary…”

“Yes, please,” Jacob said.

What was he doing? “Really, Matt. You don’t need to come. We’ve just had too much sugar this morning or something. How about I make us some sandwiches, Jacob?”

“Nooooo.”

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