Page 79 of Freak Show

The alarm on Slone’s phone started to ding, and I glanced at him as he turned it off and shoved it into his pocket.

He started to swagger toward me in his suit, and once again I was struck with just how beautiful he was.

He bent down and placed a kiss onto my upturned lips. “Have fun with Sweetie today. She won’t be here next week because the doctor said she can’t fly past thirty-six weeks. Take care of yourself.”

And I did. I took care of Sweetie, too.

We arrived late.

Really late.

As in, ten minutes into the game late.

But not because we’d intended to or anything, but because Sweetie had started to experience what she thought were contractions, and we went to the ER.

Turns out, they were only Braxton Hicks, but it was enough to make us way later than we wanted to be.

Not that I minded.

I would never leave Sweetie alone in a big city by herself.

“Shit, I knew we were gonna be late.” Sweetie apologized for the fourteenth time in as many minutes.

I sighed. “Sweetie, I already told you it’s fine. Not to mention, you literally rolled me into the stadium last game in a wheelchair, after lifting me from the cab. I think we’re beyond apologizing at this point.”

She sighed and took a seat in the back, which was the only space available.

My eyes went to the glass wall.

I found him on the field, once again dressed in all his gear, staring at the scoreboard as if he was disgusted.

They were losing. Badly.

I didn’t know quite what the issue was, but they were only about ten minutes into the game, and there was some sort of pall hanging over the WAG box that I couldn’t quite place.

Everyone was playing horribly. As in, in the minute that I’d been sitting there, they’d dropped the ball twice. And from what Slone had told me, that wasn’t a good thing.

“Let’s sit over here,” Sweetie suggested, pointing to a couple of open seats toward the far wall.

We moved toward it, pushing past a shit ton of women taking selfies, and took a seat.

Sweetie sighed, pressing her hands on her belly, and said, “This is exhausting.”

“Living?” I teased.

“Yes!” she groaned.

I had my mouth open to say something else, but my words were interrupted.

“When did y’all get married?”

I turned to look over my shoulder to find an older woman there looking familiar, yet not.

I couldn’t place how I knew her, but I knew that I’d place it eventually.

“Um…” I hesitated, not sure I should share the information with her or not. Slone was liking how it was working for us right now, and I couldn’t say I didn’t like playing pretend, either.

“That’s Slone’s mom,” Sweetie muttered to me under her breath.

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