I felt another piece of the wall surrounding my heart crumble and fall at the concerned expression on his face, and his willingness to stay even with the drama going on right now.
“Stay, please, and pizza sounds great. Hunter likes anything and everything on his. Mia and I like sausage, pepperoni, and mushrooms.”
“Got it, one deluxe, and one sausage, pepperoni and fungus,” he teased, reminding me our first night together when he’d picked all the mushrooms off the pizza I’d ordered. I mustered up a smile, then turned toward the stairs.
I knocked on both their doors and waited for them to open. When they did, I tugged Hunter by the hand into Mia’s room, simply because it was cleaner.
Mia flopped back down on her bed, and I sat down on the edge of the mattress next to her. Hunter took up a position leaning against her wall, looking resigned about having a family chat.
“Are you two OK? I know you’ve had a lot to deal with today.”
“Honestly, Mom, we’re used to Dad’s bullshit,” Hunter said, shrugging apologetically when I gave him the “mom glare” for his cursing.
“We don’t even want him to go to Florida with us,” Mia assured me as she sat up and hugged her pillow to her chest. “We’ll have a better time alone with Grandma and Grandpa. We just hate the way he bends over backward forher,yet treats us, and you, like crap.” I wrapped my arm around Mia’s shoulder and gave her a hug, then Hunter leaned down and joined in.
“I wish we didn’t have to see him at all. I don’t know why he even bothers to pretend he wants us around,” Mia muttered into my shoulder.
Ever since our divorce, I had tried to hide my feelings about Clayton and Sabrina in front of Hunter and Mia. I’d made sure I didn’t badmouth either of them in front of my kids, and at times, I’d tried to makes excuses for Clayton when he’d failed them in some way, in an effort to spare their feelings. I drew the line at outright lying to them, though.
“I know, sweetie,” I told her softly, running my fingers through her dark hair. “I don’t understand why he does the things he does, and I wish it could be different for you both. It’shis loss though, because he’s missing out on spending time with two incredibly special people.”
Hunter wiggled out of our group hug and rolled his eyes but couldn’t quite hide his smile. “OK, that’s enough. You’re getting all lame and sappy on us, Mom.”
Mia giggled as I lunged for Hunter and tried to rub my knuckles on his head like I’d done when he was little and getting a little mouthy. He reared back, and since he towered over me by a good eight inches, I didn’t have much success reaching him.
“Crap, no noogies, Mom. I’m sorry, get as sappy as you want, just no noogies.” He was laughing too hard to convey any real sincerity though, especially when I snatched Mia’s pillow from her and smacked him with it.
When the kids and I came back downstairs twenty minutes later, we were all in a better mood and starving for pizza. Dante looked relieved to see us all smiling and by the time he left a couple of hours later, he’d won over both of my kids, almost as much as he had me.
