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“That’s it?” She looks confused, which in turn confuses me.
“Were you hoping for more?”
“Not really. You’re just more relaxed than I expected,” she admits, standing back up. With her hands on her hips, she tilts her head to the side and rolls her shoulder. I watch for the first sign of pain but only see relief as she stretches.
“That’s a compliment, right?”
She blinks. “Yeah. I guess it was.”
“It’s nice to know that you’re capable of those. You had me worried for a minute there.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
My smile is wicked. “I’ll try, Scary Spice.”
Her eyes narrow into slits as soon as the words hit the air. I bite back a laugh. “No” is all she says.
I quirk a brow. “No? No what?”
If the death glare she’s giving me is anything to go by, I think it’s safe to say she’s not a fan of the name.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Not a Spice Girls fan?”
She huffs, frustrated, and it only eggs me on. I’ve always loved a good challenge, and getting Scarlett to loosen up might be my new favourite one.
“Do you not like it because you don’t know who the Spice Girls are?” I stifle a laugh when she glares at me—hard.
“I’m not a child. I know who the Spice Girls are.”
“Then you’ll learn to love the nickname,” I tease.
“I’m positive I won’t.”
I run my fingers through the long pieces of hair at the top of my head and smirk. She has no idea how wrong she is.
8
ADAM
The relationship I have with my mother and father—if you could even call what we have a genuine relationship—has always been strained.
With two highly successful criminal defense lawyers as parents, I spent more time alone than I did in their company. Whether it was long hours at the office or a late-night hookup with the people they were cheating on each other with, I was always set on the back burner, left to simmer and wait for even a sliver of their attention.
It’s been years since they’ve retired, yet I can’t say that’s made much of a difference when it comes to spending time together. In all honesty, it doesn’t bother me as much as it used to. By the time their jobs no longer held top priority in their lives, we were strangers. They had already missed too many years to make up for, left too much space between us. I’m content with the once-a-year meeting my mother plans every Thanksgiving.
Cooper barely knows his grandparents, but I know that’s for the best. It’s better not to give them the power to hurt him down the road when they inevitably find something wrong with him or his actions in the future.
They were very outspoken about how disappointed there were when I brought a two-year-old boy to their door, terrified out of my mind and shaking in the rain. I wouldn’t have gone to them at all had I not been in such a terrified place after Beth, Cooper’s mother and an old college fling, found me at a bar and confessed that I was a father to a son I had no idea existed. But my mom was still my mom, and all I wanted was a hug from the woman who carried me for nine months.
Instead, I got to listen to an hour-long rant on how negatively my actions could affect our family and, more importantly, their careers, while cradling a sleeping child in my arms that I had no idea was mine just hours prior.
It’s safe to say they were no help to me. They didn’t know the first thing about being parents, and I beat myself up for days afterward for thinking that these circumstances would have made my mother’s maternal instincts come to light. But it’s hard to find something that doesn’t exist.
As I look down at Cooper now, watching as he misses the dribbles of melted ice cream as they flow down his waffle cone and drip onto his swim trunks, I can’t imagine being anywhere else, missing out on these moments.
I grab a napkin from the stack between us and hand it to him. He flashes me an innocent, toothy grin before patting his shorts dry and making quick work of licking up all the melted ice cream from his cone.
