Page 35 of View With Your Heart

“Like a date?” Gee teases, and his voice cracks.

“No, just as friends, but I understand if you guys have plans for the night. I remember Harbor Days.” Fondly, I recall all the nights of carnival rides, firework displays, and the parties at someone’s field. Then I remember a boat from this property, wabbling on a lake with a girl in my lap, and my eyes return to Britton.

“I want Mom to let me hang out with my friends without her following me around. Theo already said he’d take me to the carnival. You should go with Coach, Mom,” Gee encourages, and I can’t believe the kid has become my accomplice.

“Maybe I have plans,” she huffs, and Gee laughs.

“Like what?” he asks. Good one, buddy.

“Jenna and Henry want me to hang out with them.” Her voice turns haughty like she’s a twelve-year-old herself, and I’m questioning these sudden plans. Gee shrugs at his mom’s answer, and I’ve lost my partner in crime.

“What about your boyfriend?” I ask. Doesn’t the guy even take her out, especially to the town’s big event? He should be wooing her with a Ferris Wheel ride, kissing her at the top of the turn. He should be winning her a stuffed animal at those overpriced games and buying her a giant, sticky, cinnamon elephant ear that they share.

“Mom doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Gee confesses, and my head swivels to his mother.

“Oh, really? She told me she had a man in her life,” I tease, suddenly feeling guilty at exposing her if she wanted to keep her guy a secret, potentially protecting the feelings of her son.

“She tells me all the time I’m the only man in her life,” he states with confidence, and I glare at Britton, who looks down at her bare feet, rubbing the toes of one foot over the other.

“Is that true, Britton?”

Her face lifts, bright red and guilty as sin. Busted.

“Coach needs to be going. Now,” Britton says to Gee.

“I’ll be sending you the invite to dinner as my plus one with directions to the restaurant, so you can attend with me tomorrow night.” Gotcha.

“You don’t have my number,” Britton states.

“I can send it to you,” Gee says to me, falling back into line as my pal and sending me his mother’s number from the phone in his hand. I smile, crooking one side of my lip higher than the other in victory. Britton smirks at me, but it’s not as fierce as she can be.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” I state.

“I’m undecided.”

I chuckle at her answer. I used to have ways to make her decide, but I can’t remind her of those moments with her son before us.

“Okay, Gee. Sunday, buddy.” I reach out a fist for him to bump.

“Hey, Coach, why couldn’t the team manager drink the water?”

Britton shakes her head, a faint smile curling her lips. I glance from her to her kid.

“I don’t know. Why?”

“He didn’t have a pitcher.”

I laugh. I like this kid. And if he helps me win over his mom, who isn’t dating someone, I might grow to love him.

Take 13

Scene: A Balcony

[Britton]

“What you’re saying is, he could be waiting for you right now?” Jenna is on her second margarita as we sit outside on the balcony of her apartment. She’s moved into the space over the pharmacy as it was vacated in June. The spot provides me a view of the carnival, which stands on the public parking lot between town and the local marina. The fireworks will be going off over the lake later.

After closing TeasMe! at four and running through some last-minute business, I met Jenna and Henry here and poured out my history with Gavin. Well, most of my history.