Then the hoop gets to her neck.
And it drops.
My hand goes limp in Decker’s. “No,” I whisper.
“It’s okay, she’s good.”
I want to turn to him and say no she isn’t. She’s embarrassed, and I’m going to go get her and hold her and let her cry and tell her she never has to do anything like this again.
Hazel stands with the hoop on the stage floor, and the music keeps going. For one very long second, she stares at it. I could very well see her tossing it into the audience and saying she’s done.
Instead, she steps into it again, looks to the side stage, and the music stops and restarts.
She gets it to her chest. And I watch her do the thing—the release, the trust, the getting out of her own way—and the hoop spins around her neck for the full four rotations. Decker cups his mouth and whoops for her.
“Goldie, calm down there,” Easton says.
Decker doesn’t respond, and I glance at him and the look in his eyes. As if he already considers her his. It undoes something in me.
I don’t try to stop what’s happening in my chest. I gave up managing that somewhere around the night he walked through my front door.
Hazel finishes her routine. She catches the hoop at her neck, pulls it down to her hip and holds her bow—the full three-second dramatic curtsy she added herself—and claps ring through the auditorium.
She walks off stage, and Decker leans in. “Our girl did good. I’m so proud of her.”
I want to kiss him, to hug him, but all I say is, “Me too.”
Someone turns around and says how great it was that she didn’t give up and just tried again, and Decker sings her praises like a proud dad.
I guess in a way, he’s on his way there.
I really need to send that email tomorrow.
Chapter
Forty-Six
Decker
* * *
“Hey, daddy of the year?”
I turn around after getting the cookie that Hazel told me to take. I think she really wants to get mine since Penelope told her she’s only allowed one because they’re so big. At some point I might have to stop being the fun uncle type and be on the same side as Penelope. But tonight is not that night. It’s a night to celebrate.
“Tedi.” I hug her, unable to get my arms fully around her because of her swollen belly.
“So… the manager’s daughter?” Her dark eyebrows shoot up to her hairline, and she runs her hand over her stomach.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I put the cookie in a napkin and hold it. “Congrats. I saw your announcement online.”
“God, you’re even blushing.” She ignores me and pushes me with her hand. I lose my balance for a second because I forgot what Tedi was like. She’s the older sister of my two best friends back in Philly. A few years ago, she bribed me into having a fake relationship with her to help keep her away from her ex-boyfriend, and now husband, Tweetie.
“Where’s the kid?” I ask, changing the subject.
“The kid? You mean Addison?” She points to the corner of the room where Tweetie has Addison propped up on the ledge of a window and is feeding her a cookie.
“All the Falcons are here?”
