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No million-dollar contracts. No twenty-thousand seat arena jam-packed with screaming fans. No Cup to heft.
Just Rox and her buddies.
And she loves glitter and sparkles and rhinestones.
So, she gets glitter and sparkles and rhinestones.
“Whatcha think, Dad?” she asks, flashing her hand in my direction, sending Tiffany smiling behind her.
“Hmm,” I say, carefully inspecting them even though she’s shown me the design at least five times since she and Tiff got home. “I think they’re beautiful nails for a beautiful girl.”
She smiles widely, presses her lips to my cheek in a sloppy kiss, and I scoop her close, pretending to eat her ear, making her laugh, those giggles the best sound on the planet. But—all too soon she’s squirming and I have to put her down, have let her run across the room to my dad. “Come on, Grandpa,” she says, taking his hand and drawing him forward. “I’m ready for our sleepover!”
Then she’s tugging him—Pierre Barie, owner of the Gold and several multibillion-dollar companies—toward the front door like she’s an excited puppy on her first walk. Tiffany follows with Roxie’s overnight bag, stuffed to the brim with Squishmallows of all plush, cuddly sizes. I watch as my mom sends another disapproving look my direction before moving to the rack just inside the door, pulls off her jacket, and shrugs it on. And then she slips her purse from the hook, hangs it over her shoulder.
And all the while, I can feel her condemnation.
It’s not a new emotion.
She’s filled the room with it—anytime it’s the two of us—ever since I asked for the divorce.
It’s there—a palpable force that runs over my skin like sandpaper. And I know the only thing that’ll make it go away is to do something that I can’t.
Go back.
Fix it.
Make it so it never happened.
I can’t—fucking can’t.
Something she knows—or at least understands somewhat—because she just crosses the room, presses a kiss to my cheek. “We’ll meet you for breakfast tomorrow.”
“Let me know if she or you need anything,” I tell her, hugging her carefully, knowing that I’m lucky to have her here, that she battled to stay on the earth for us.
“I will, baby,” she murmurs, disapproval finally softening as her eyes come to mine, her brows flicking up. “You’ll do the same?”
“I’ll be fine.”
She huffs out a breath, shakes her head. “Sure you will,” she mutters, but she walks out the front door when I hold it open for her, heads down the path.
My dad is at his car, watching as Roxie buckles herself into her booster seat.
A booster seat in Pierre Barie’s car.
Will wonders ever fucking cease?
That, at least, sends a bolt of amusement through me, the first in far too fucking long.
Amusement that lasts precisely one more heartbeat.
Because then I hear Roxie announce—in response to my dad’s inquiry about what Brit is up to tonight, “My mom says she’s going on another run with her new running friend.”
I freeze, a knife jabbing into my insides.
My mom’s head whips in my direction, brows lifted almost to her hairline.
Tiff finishes stowing Rox’s bag in the trunk and slams it closed, her expression unreadable.
