I adjusted my grip on the mesh bag. “You heard me. Did you see more than ten seconds of the game? Or the previous game? Or the one before that?”
“That’s really none of your—”
“You have a wonderful daughter, if you don’t know. Maybe you should try carving out some of your precious time to spend with her.”
Red climbed Greg’s neck. “Who are you to tell me anything about my daughter?”
My toes inched closer to his personal space. “Someone who’s spent more time with her than her own father. Maybe even someone who cares about her more than you do.”
His nostrils flared, and his gaze widened past me. “Tell Sierra I’ll call her. I’m not going to stand here and take this from some volunteer county coach who doesn’t have anything better to do than insert himself where he doesn’t belong.”
“Greg.” Nicole rushed past me, a quiver in her voice I’d never heard before. “Wait. Sierra will be out in one second. Will you just wait?”
Greg didn’t wait. He didn’t even slow as he marched his way to his sports car and peeled out of the parking lot.
Nicole spun on her heel. Any defeat in her posture had been replaced with an iron rod. “You had no right.” Her voice quaked with an entirely different emotion.
I held my hands out. “Nicole.”
“No.” She slashed at the air. “Do you have any idea how hard I worked just to get him here in the first place? He was going to take Sierra to get ice cream to celebrate her victory. How do you think that little girl is going to feel when she comes out here and sees her father gone? Again.”
A boulder sank in my stomach. “We can take her for ice cream.” It wasn’t the same. I knew that. And nothing I did would reverse time and allow me to take back my words. I didn’t regret saying them, and Greg needed to hear that and more, but the person to suffer for my lack of control would be Sierra, and I never wanted that.
Some of the vinegar evaporated from Nicole’s expression. “Look, I know you meant well.” She shook her head and looked to the side. “But it wasn’t your place.”
My wrist rotated to set the balls at my feet. “Where is my place, Nicole?”
She screwed her lips tight. Shook her head again.
I took a tentative step toward her. “I want my place to be with you and Sierra.”
She looked at me then, eyes full of regret. “We don’t always get what we want,” she whispered, voice strangled.
I stilled. “What does that mean?”
Her shoulders rose and fell. Where was the woman with the fighting spirit? The one who tried to save an entire planet singlehandedly?
“I don’t know.” She sounded defeated. “What I do know is I need to call Greg and try to smooth this over. I need to check on Sierra and see if she’s finished changing and break it to her gently that her dad bailed yet again. And I need to be there and help her through another disappointment.”
She made to move past me, but I reached out and touched her arm. I wanted so desperately to help lift the weight off her shoulders, but she had to allow me close enough to do that. While I’d stated my desire to be by her and Sierra’s sides, it felt as if she was pushing me away.
I let my hand slide to her fingers and squeezed. “I’m sorry, Nicole. If you need space, I’ll respect that, but you aren’t the only one who knows how to fight for something.”
She didn’t squeeze my hand back. “I’ll call you later,” she said.
Once more I was left watching her walk away from me.
21
Nicole
“Really, Mom?” Sierra gave me an unamused expression, exasperation fairly dripping from her tilted head.
We’d entered some kind of Freaky Friday body switch scenario where she looked and sounded like the mother while I was the one standing as a child under her chastisement.
And I felt properly reproved. Not that I needed her to tell me the same things I’d been telling myself.
I’d acted too hastily. Spoken too harshly. Walked away too quickly.
