Page 226 of On the Breakaway

“I definitely complained.”

“You complained while you kept doing it.”

Something soft unfurls inside me because that little boy isn’t so different from the man by my side. He’d done the same thing for me, staying behind me while I wobbled and catching me every time I started falling.

“Can I steal her?” Grayson asks, tugging on my arm.

His mom waves us away. “That’d be up to her.”

He looks at me, quirking his brow.

“Oh, so now you ask before you kidnap me?”

“I don’t kidnap you.”

“You’ve raised a real delinquent,” I tease his mom.

He gasps. “Don’t be a tattletale.”

She chuckles.

I poke him. “A tattletale? Really? Someone’s been hanging out with too many five-year-olds.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny.” He squeezes my hand. “C’mon, I want to show you something.”

We wander toward the edge of the property where the noise softens beneath the rustling branches overhead. The grass gives way to a narrow walking path that curves around a small pond, hidden just beyond the backyard.

“I forgot how peaceful it is back here,” he says.

“You have a pond?”

“My grandpa dug it.”

“Of course he did.”

We walk without saying much, our shoulders brushing every few steps. When I was growing up, silence meant tension and anger, but now, it’s always comfortable. Easy.

His thumb lazily traces circles across the back of my hand.

“My family likes you.”

“I like them.”

“I noticed.”

I smile to myself. “They’re kind of impossible not to like. That must be where you get it from.”

“You used to find it pretty easy to dislike me.” He studies me for a second.

I stop walking. “That’s not true. I disliked this fictional person that I created in my head. A man who was no different from my ex, but that isn’t you. It never was. Once I realized that, you were impossible not to like, too.”

He tugs on my hand, pulling me closer and giving me a quick kiss before walking again. “Thank god for broken-down cars and drunken meltdowns then.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t go that far–” I trail off when my phone vibrates inside the pocket of my sundress.

I pull it out to see my mom’s name across the screen. Everything inside me threatens to slip backward for one agonizing second. Then, I shove it back into my pocket, refusing to let her ruin my day.

There was a time when I would’ve answered it immediately. I would talk to her while she ignored all of my pleas for civility. I would listen while she trashed my dad, then do the same for him when he called.