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In the Deuces parking lot, with the snow softly falling, she watched Billy patiently coax her father into his truck. He showed the same patience when he helped Bean get a splinter out of his foot, and when he listened to Zack recount the blow-by-blow plot of a Percy Jackson book. He was even patient with her while she interrogated waitresses about risotto. Patience wasn’t generally a narcissistic trait.
She’d made a mistake about one thing. Billy wasn’t self-absorbed like Richard Scarlett was. He’d just been a young guy trying to juggle a wild new life.
And she’d been a young and anxious wife unable to handle the stress of his fame.
But that was then, and this was now.
She hurried to hop into the backseat of the Tundra. Billy buckled in her father, then settled himself behind the wheel. From where she sat, she had a close-up view of the hair curling on the back of his neck. She dragged her gaze away and focused on the snow swirling around them.
Billy and I are in a new phase of our relationship. That reporter has it all wrong.
Nine
After Billy told Pete about the fiasco of the first lunch interview, he recommended—after some swearing—that Billy show off his parenting chops. “Take her somewhere with you and the boys. And tell them to behave themselves.”
“You don’t have kids, do you?”
“No, I have clients and that’s plenty.”
So Billy invited Lacey to join him and the boys for an after-school adventure—ice skating on a shallow pond he knew in the woods. Lake Bittersweet never froze completely, although sometimes you could skate around the edges. But the pond froze early and hard, since it was only about a foot deep and completely shaded by trees.
She met them at the head of the trail, where he presented her with a thermos of hot chocolate and a pair of hockey skates.
“These are Jenna’s. She said you can use them if your feet are anywhere between size eight and nine. She sent extra socks in case yours are on the smaller side.”
“Very thoughtful. She isn’t coming with us today?”
“No, she’s busy.” The mycologist who had hired her to illustrate his mushroom guide had moved up one of the deadlines, and Jenna was panicking. “Deadline,” he added, pretty sure that would get some sympathy from Lacey.
It worked. “Oh, I know all about those. I assume you’re stepping in to take some of the load off?”
“Exactly.” He smiled. “It’s all part of being an effective co-parenting team.”
Too cheesy? Too bad. They needed to make up some ground. Lacey was way too focused on potential sparks between them, and not enough on how well they worked together.
“Kids,” Billy called to the boys, who were already racing ahead down the trail. “Slow down, stay where I can see you.”
“Dad!” came their combined cry of protest. But they slowed down to more of a hop than a gallop.
Lacey zipped up her sheepskin jacket and wrapped a wool scarf around her neck. “Let’s do this. So tell me what else you’re doing to help Jenna while she tries to make her deadline. Are you cooking meals? Taking the boys to school? Making cookies for the PTA bake sale?”
“Uh…” Crap, was there a bake sale no one had told him about? He should find out. Look up some recipes. Get floury. “I’ve been picking up pizza orders like a champ.”
He caught the quick expression of disapproval on her face. Damn, she was right. He should step up his game. Pizza was the cliché single-dad fallback meal. Nothing against it—the boys loved pizza night—but he shouldn’t always rely on Jenna to make the real meals.
Tonight, he’d make dinner, he decided right then and there. And some damn cookies, PTA bake sale or not.
Jenna would be thrilled. Or horrified. It was fifty-fifty.
“No spoilers, but there’s a good chance there will be a healthy non-pizza meal on the table tonight.”
“Really? That I have to see. When’s dinnertime in the Cooper household? Six? Seven?”
Oh shit. What had he done? Could he gracefully back out somehow? He should text Jenna before any kind of dinner invite happened. But she’d told him to only call for emergencies. Which meant boy-related emergencies.
“Seven,” he said, even though they generally ate closer to six. An extra hour would give him extra time to prepare.
“Excellent. My editor had been pressuring me for a home visit. That’s when you can really see how a family interacts.”
