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“I need to meet this woman,” Natalie says.
I laugh again. “We’ll see how it goes. I just wanted to check you’re okay with Kylie and me hanging out with her.”
“Yeah, I trust you,” Natalie says. “You’re lucky my boss just called or I would have spent more time grilling you. But I have to go.”
“I’ll check in with you later. But don’t worry, Nat. Take your time; we’ll be fine.”
We end the call. I leave the office and drive to Kylie’s school to pick her up from the aftercare center she attends.
She bounds out of the building, and when she sees me, her face lights up.
“Uncle Noah!” she cries out and flies toward me, wrapping her arms around my waist.
“Hello, peanut,” I say and pick her up for a hug. “Mom’s working late, so we’re kicking it for the day. How does that sound?”
“Great!”
“Good. I’m hungry. What do you feel like getting?”
“Burgers,” she says when I set her down.
“Bye, Kylie!” Some of her friends call from the building. She lifts a hand in a shy wave before wriggling it into mine, and we walk to my car together.
“Your friends seem nice,” I say.
“Yeah, they are. They’re just really noisy sometimes when I just want to sit and read quietly.”
Kylie’s a little shy and withdrawn. When I look at her, I ache for what she and Natalie have to go through, with David gone. Kylie looks just like him, with her dark hair and green eyes.
I put the car into gear and pull onto the road. While we drive, I find Raven’s name on the touch screen in my car and ringing sounds over the Bluetooth speaker system.
“Who’s Raven?” Kylie asks. Now that she can read, it’s harder to hide things from her.
“A friend,” I say.
“Aspecialfriend?” she asks with a grin.
“Noah,” Raven says after the second ring. “I was just thinking about you.”
“I was just thinking about you, too.” I wink at Kylie. “I’m looking after my niece today. Kylie and I were just about to pick up some burgers. Do you want to join us?”
Raven hesitates. In the background, I can hear the dull thud of the fashion show music and the mutter of people closer to her. Someone—I’m guessing Michelle—talks to her.
“Yeah,” she finally says. “Burgers sound perfect. I’m starving.”
I’m pleased she agreed and I tell her where to meet us. When we hang up, Kylie studies me without saying anything.
“What?” I ask.
“Are you shy, like me?”
I think about all the women I charm all the time. About the team members I talk to on a daily basis. Of the nature of my job.
“No, I don’t think so,” I answer.
“Then how come you don’t have a lot of friends?” she asks.
I want to tell her I have a lot of friends, but that’s not true. I have Rooster. A few football players come to see me when they’re in New York, like Marc and Brett, who I studied with, but I don’t call them when I get stuck about something.
