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He rubbed the top of Max’s head. “Yeah, I promise.”
She followed Jeff out of the bedroom and pulled the door partially shut behind her.
Jeff stopped at the end of the hallway. “Can we talk?”
She eyed the half empty bottle of wine on the kitchen counter. “Do you want a drink?” Alcohol was definitely needed to have this conversation.
“Beer would be great,” he stepped into the kitchen.
Kia pulled a beer out of the fridge for him and refilled her wineglass. She gestured toward the living room. “You want to sit in there?”
“Yeah.” Jeff followed her into the living room. He sat on the chair opposite her and rested his elbows on his knees. “Thanks for letting me in tonight.”
“Of course.” She tilted her head slightly as she looked at him. Did he really think she would stop him from seeing his son? “No matter what happens between us, you’re always Max’s dad.”
“Is there still an us?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Jeff. I didn’t expect this to all be so hard.”
“Maybe that’s why they say if it comes too easy you don’t appreciate it.”
She studied him. Gone was the cocky ballplayer she was used to. He seemed hesitant, unsure. Not at all like the Jeff she knew.
He wrinkled his nose. “Did you catch the game?”
“I did yeah.” Her gut ached. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring Max to the game. It was shitty of me. And not fair at all. I’ll make sure we’re there Sunday when my sister attends.”
He took a sip of his beer and set it on the coffee table. “Understandable you didn’t come tonight, given everything.” He picked up the beer bottle, then set it back down without taking a sip. “Probably better you weren’t there. I kind of created another shit storm with the media afterwards.”
Nausea swirled in her belly. If that was true, they really were done. The reality of that hurt more than she’d imagined. “What did you do?”
“It wasn’t my finest hour.” He cleared his throat. “It may be best if you just watch it and then we talk.”
He held out his phone toward her. She shook it off and pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I got it. Vika’s been blowing up my phone ever since the game ended. I just didn’t want to look at anything with Max there.”
With a grimace, Jeff rocked slightly in his chair. “Probably for the best.”
Afraid to look, she held the phone in front of her. “What am I going to see here?”
“Hopefully, me stepping up and showing you I’ll protect my family.” He rubbed his palms together nervously. “Maybe just watch it.”
She tapped the link Vika had sent her. Jeff’s face instantly filled the screen. She gasped as she listened to him rip into the reporter. What had he done? Her eyes drifted to Jeff. He winced as he listened to the audio.
“That sounded so much worse on replay than it did in my head the first go around,” he muttered. Picking up the beer, he took a long pull, nearly finishing the entire thing in one sip. “On a scale of 1-10, how pissed are you?” he asked.
“How pissed am I?” She blinked at him. Was he serious? “How much trouble are you in for that?”
“Not as much as you’d think, honestly.” He chuckled and shook his head like he still couldn’t believe it. “But that’s not important right now.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “I can’t change what happened, Kia, but I can own my shit. If I hadn’t been a jealous prick, the press wouldn’t have had anything to sink their teeth into. That’s on me.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” she whispered. “That you defended Max and I like that.” Her eyes clouded with tears. No one had ever stood up for her that way before. She’d always had to protect herself, protect Max. It had always been her and Max against the world, but he’d stepped up. Defended them at a potentially significant cost to himself. How was she supposed to respond to that?
Jeff stood up and walked over to the sofa. He sat on the edge of the coffee table, so he was close to her. “I told you when we started this thing, Kia, that I had your back.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t really believe you.” The tears she’d been fighting to hold in leaked down her cheeks.
He reached out and wiped the tear with his thumb. “Then it’s my job to show that to you. I meant it when I said in that video you looked like a fierce mama bear who would do anything to protect our son.” He wiped another tear from her cheek. “You deserve me to be equally fierce in my protection of both of you.”
“You don’t have to protect me.”
