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“All is fair in love and baseball.” He winks as he grips my waist and pulls me up. “I love you, Whitley Mae Paul.”
I playfully roll my eyes. “I know.”
He sighs loudly.
I take his face in my hands, just like he does mine. “I love you.”
“I know you do, but, Whit, I’m not sure I’ll ever get sick of hearing it, so you keep saying it, yeah?”
I press my forehead to his. “I love you, John Gregory Paul.”
Monday
“Can we do Monday morning waffles every day?” Nora asks.
“You mean, every Monday?” Pope smiles down at her as she swings between us.
“Uh-huh.” She grins. “They’re my favorite—fluffy waffles with banana, whipped cream, and a little bit of chocolate.”
“When I’m home, we can do that. It’s not as easy when it’s just you and Mommy.”
“How many more sleeps do we have until you gotta go to Florida?”
“We still have a couple of weeks,” he says in such an assuring manner that she seems content with that answer, but a couple of weeks will go by just as quickly as the past two have. Too quickly.
Pope helps Nora into her seat in my vehicle. We chose to drive mine because, so that she wasn’t bouncing off the walls at school today talking about the wedding, her new house, and her new seat.
As I’m opening the passenger door, I hear a vehicle stop behind me and glance over my shoulder. It’s Spud.
“Heard a rumor that you got married to a man other than your fiancé?” he snarls.
Before I even open my mouth, Pope is beside me. “Ex-fiancé. Now, move it along.”
“You think you’re the mayor of Walton, John Paul? You ain’t shit, but one injury away from being a washed-up has-been, know-nothin’, married to a money grubbing wh?—”
“John Paul,” I yell as he reaches in Spud’s truck, and all I can see are hands flying.
“You speak about my wife, my family, in any way, and you’ll be hard to find.”
I tug on John Paul’s crewneck, attempting to stop him from getting himself into trouble. He steps back enough for me to witness Spud trying to pull down his sweatshirt, which John Paul somehow pulled up from the back and over his head.
He holds the door open for me. “Let’s get a move on, Whitley Mae Paul. We’ve got things to do.”
Sliding in, I look back at Nora, who’s all wide-eyed, her lips rolled in like she’s trying not to laugh.
“Nora,” I gasp.
“Mommy, he looked so funny!” She pulls her shirt up by the collar and hides her face so all I see are her little pigtails as she waves her hands in the air. “Money-rubbing more.”
Oh damn, I think because not only did Nora see what Pope did, but she also heard what Spud said that caused it.
I look from her to Pope as he looks between Nora and me and then to Spud, who is still trying to straighten out his shirt, and the look in his eyes is not the John Paul I knew before he left Walton. He is major league pissed.
“John Paul, we need to go.”
“Whit,” he growls, “he’s drunk.”
I hold up my phone to show him I’m ending a text to York. “It’s handled.”
