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When we were done, Landon asked, “Coach B, are you riding with us to the clinic?”
Emery’s gaze jumped to mine but she shuttered the alarm, putting her calm mom mask in place. The woman I’d met at the bar had left that mask behind that night. “You can if you want.”
I was going to the clinic anyway, but the cheer of the crowd behind me reminded all of us, especially Landon, that the game was still going without him. I couldn’t heap more disappointment on him. “Sure. Thanks.”
Avery, a tiny version of her mother but with dark-brown hair like her brother’s, and the other little girl, Afton, crawled into the back. Avery dropped a booster seat on the middle seat and Emery handed her the shoulder pads to throw in the far back. I helped Landon into the booster as Emery buckled the youngest into a car seat.
The little girl—I was shit with ages—stared at me with big eyes that weren’t completely brown. A green, much darker than the green of Emery’s eyes, was woven through the girl’s irises.
Memories surfaced. Big baby eyes. A dark blue. Nurses said her eyes would be a darker color, like brown.
I shook the memory away and focused. The floor of the Traverse was filled with toys and a couple of toddler cups. A few sweaters were scattered around, and what looked like crackers were crushed into the floor liner.
The mess eased the pressure in my lungs. What a mess. My pickup was immaculate, but that was because I could run a vacuum through it once a week. My work kept me busy, but some days, I felt like I had nothing but time.
“Cleaning’s not the priority it used to be,” Emery said, as if she was preempting a comment.
I snapped my gaze up. She was adjusting the straps around the girl but had caught me eyeing the mess. Of course she’d take it the wrong way when I’d been dangerously close to pondering what it would’ve been like to have to clean crumbs off my seats.
“You have more important things to worry about,” I said gruffly.
I got into the passenger seat. Emery slid in and went to toss the bulky bag on the seat I was in. She paused, a small frown on her pretty lips—lips I’d tasted and had wanted more of for the last two weeks.
I held my hands out. She gave me a tight smile and handed me the bag. The zipper was open. The bag was filled with snacks and diapers and clothes. A few bottles of water. Armageddon could happen on the way to the clinic and we’d be fine for a while.
She fired up the engine and pulled away. I adjusted the bag and tried to evaluate Emery out of the corner of my eye. She drove with her gaze constantly darting to the rearview mirror. A worried mom.
“Think it’s a sprain?” I asked more to break the ice.
“Probably.”
I didn’t know what else to say. We had a hell of a history, but it was a blink in the grand scheme of life. Then the new girl at the bar turned out to be one of the moms on the football team. It shouldn’t have come as such a shock. “How did I not know you were his mom for the last two weeks of practice?”
Her startled gaze jerked to the rearview mirror again. Was she afraid her kids would figure out how we knew each other?
A thought settled like a lemon sour in my belly. Had she realized I was helping coach and had avoided me?
“I work until five most days,” she said. “He walks home after practice.”
He’d finally gotten me his address. He lived only a couple blocks away from where we practiced at the school.
“You know Coach B, Mom?” Landon asked from the back. The weight was back on my lungs. This was territory I’d avoided for so long.
Emery ran her lower lip through her teeth. I wasn’t the only one wondering how we’d explain how we knew each other. “We’ve…met.”
Yeah, we had. We’d met hard. “What a coincidence, huh?”
“It’s something, all right.” She spared me a glance that, despite the gravity and the awkwardness, held faint amusement. “I really did have to go. Riley had a sour tummy and was throwing up.”
That shouldn’t have been the relief it was. “Yup.”
The rest of the trip was filled with silence.
