“Night, Doc.”
The door closes quietly, and I stand there just for a minute until I hear the lock slide into place.
Thirty.
One preseason game.
One excellent birthday celebration.
One promise left unspoken.
And one woman I’ve spent over a decade pretending she’s just my friend.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Presley
It’s been a month since Saint’s birthday, and we’re in the thick of the season now. It’s a Tuesday, and the team is off today after our win on Sunday. Alie and I both went into the office for a while, but after lunch, we decide to take off early. Alie typically likes to go home when she knows Liam is there, but today she asks if I want to go with her and Seraphina to Bubble Planet. So, we grab our little peanut from the nursery in the building and head out.
Bubble Planet is exactly what it sounds like.
The second we step inside, it feels like we’re in another world, with walls washed in soft pastel light, floating spheres hanging from the ceiling, and iridescent reflections dancing across every surface, like we walked into a kaleidoscope.
Seraphina gasps. Loudly. Like one of those full-body, wide-eyed, hands-to-her-cheeks gasp that makes every adult around us smile.
“Bubbles!” she shrieks.
And then she takes off.
Not really gone. She’s just turned three, so her version of gone is sprinting eight feet ahead of us to the nearest cluster of floating circles, immediately trying to hug one into her tiny body, and falling to the ground, giggling.
I can’t stop the laugh that spills out of me. “Hey, careful, silly girl.”
“She’s fine,” Alie says from beside me, way too calm for a mom watching her child launch herself into a room full of reflective objects.
“She just tried tackling a bubble.”
Alie shrugs one shoulder. “Yeah,” she watches with amusement. “Reminds me of someone else I know.”
“Who? Her dad?”
She smiles and looks over at me. “No, you.”
I point a finger at my chest. “I wasn’t like that. And you wouldn’t remember anyway. I’m five years older than you.”
“True. I didn’t know you at her age, obviously, but she shares your spirit. She’s not afraid of anything or anyone. She sees something she wants, she goes after it.”
“And none of us tells her no.”
“True again. But seriously, Pres. I’ve always admired that about you,” she says, bumping her elbow to mine.
Seraphina laughs as one of the bubbles spins in her hands, catching the lights and reflecting on her face. She laughs again like the whole room exists just for her.
Everything in my chest softens as I watch her. I’m obsessed with her. I love being her aunt.
I crouch next to her. “What do you think, Sera?”
She looks at me with awe. “It’s like magic, Auntie Pwes.”
