I drag my focus back to my teammates. “What?”
He lifts his brows. “You’re staring.”
“No, I’m not.”
Jax barks out a laugh. “You absolutely are.”
Cooper takes a slow drink, then says mildly, “He has been since she walked in.”
My jaw flexes. “No, I haven’t?—”
“Relax,” Knox says with a grin. “I’m just saying… she could probably use a friend. And you’re already in dad mode.”
“I’m always in dad mode,” I shoot back.
“That’s not what I meant,” Jax says with even more humor threaded through his voice.
Cooper shifts, then stops halfway through the motion. Pain tightens his expression before it’s smoothed away.
His eyes cut to mine before he says, “Careful, Lennox. You keep telling yourself it’s harmless and you might just start believing it.”
Without bothering to respond, I force my attention across the room and find Kia bent over so that she’s eye level with Elody, nodding along while my daughter talks, as if every rambling thought matters. I’ve gotten good at spotting the people who pretend. Especially the ones who do it around my kid.
That’s not what this is.
Elody tugs her toward me, practically bouncing the entire way.
“Daddy, can Kia come to our house and play? Please? Please, pleeeease?”
I blow out a reluctant breath, trying to find a polite way out of this mess. “Bug, I’m sure Kia has other things?—”
A tentative smile pulls at the younger woman’s lips. “If it’s okay with you, I don’t mind.”
Elody’s eyes widen. “Is it okay, Daddy? Can Kia come over?”
Christ. I really need to draw a hard line in the sand and say no. My daughter needs to understand that Kia isn’t going to become a permanent fixture in our lives. That this, whatever the hell it is, comes with an expiration date.
The words hover on the tip of my tongue until Elody looks up at me like I’m holding her whole heart in my hands, and the thought of taking something else away from her feels unnecessarily cruel.
“Yeah, sure,” I hear myself say. “Maybe tomorrow morning. But only for an hour or two.”
Elody squeals. “Yay!”
“Looks like you found a new friend,” Evelyn says as she steps closer, attention settling on my little girl.
“I did!” Elody beams. “Kia’s my best friend!”
Instead of trying to temper her expectations, I swallow them down. In the grand scheme of things, it won’t matter. Kia will probably flake on us anyway. A conflict will come up and her plans will change.
Evelyn turns to Kia with a friendly smile. “And what about you? Oliver mentioned that you’ve been staying with him. What brings you to Chicago?”
The younger woman shifts, clearly uncomfortable to be put on the spot.
“I was in my senior year at Western,” she says. “But I decided it might be best to take a break and figure out what I really want to do. I’m not sure if accounting is it.”
Evelyn’s expression turns thoughtful. “Sometimes stepping back and taking a little time to assess the situation is the smartest move you can make.”
Hugh appears beside her with a tumbler in hand. “Is that what you tell yourself each time you leave a board meeting early?”
