Oh, she has no idea.
Her attention shifts to the park, where children play hopscotch, tag, and ascend the climbing frame, squealing with joy. Her posture is relaxed, but she’s still, as if she’s mid-thought and has forgotten to continue breathing. The corners of her lips lift, but not in a full smile.
“Do you want kids eventually?” I ask.
“Yeah… I do.” Flo looks at me. “I always thought I wouldn’t have them. I never really imagined myself as a mother when I was younger, but then Megan had Mollie, and now Leo—” She pauses, her tongue darting out of her mouth to wet her bottom lip, and she sighs. “There’s just something about speaking to a child that’s so refreshing, you know? They have such different perspectives on life. I mean, knowing that you shape their childhood by the things you teach them—it’s a lot of responsibility, but it’s the type of responsibility I want one day. I think I’ve discovered that I’m actually pretty good with kids.” A pause and a smile. “Do you want more one day?”
My hand scrubs at my stubble. “I would love a little girl. I’d fill her with confidence from day one. Tell her how smart she is. Funny she is. Beautiful she is. That her voice matters, and she could be anything she wants to be. I’d probably want her to grow up and be just like you, in all honesty.”
“I can see you being a girl dad. Swapping that Superhero underwear for My Little Pony instead.”
“If that ever gets out to the press, I’ll know it was you.”
“I’ll already be on the road by then. You won’t be able to catch me.”
“Oh, I’d be able to catch you, trouble.”
My laughter dies down when she asks, “Have you seen the recent report about…?”
“Leo and I? Yeah, I have.”
Another woman saying she believes her cousin is the mother of Leo, as she went to Vegas the same month we had a game there, and then didn’t hear from her for almost a year—utter shit.
I used to get angry about them. I wanted to correct every lie, but now I stare at the screen and feel… nothing. It still weighs heavily on my heart, but there isn’t much emotion there; just a hollow pressure.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry? You didn’t write the report, Flo.”
“No, but it’s just so stupid. And wrong. Why won’t they just stop? You and Leo are human beings.” I can see her blood beginning to boil, building behind those ocean blues.
“Hey, it’s fine.” I lay my hand over hers.
“Do you never get angry about it?”
“I used to, but I think I just accept the inevitable now. It doesn’t feel like peace, but it’s probably as close as I’m going to get, and I can live with that. Ihaveto live with that.”
Not caring about the reports gives me the illusion that I’m in control, that I get to choose whether things affectme or not. However, right now, looking into Flo’s eyes, I finally feel like I’m in the driver’s seat, like I’m the one behind the wheel, so it hurts that the second this woman leaves, she’ll take all the control I feel I have over my life with her.
Poppy juts her hip out at me when I walk through the tunnel to the area where she’s practising her cheerleading routine alone in the stadium, the others having left already.
“Trying to creep on the cheerleaders, Evan? What would Peter say?” She folds her arms across her chest and smiles, before pressing pause on the music she’s playing from her phone, and snatching up a small towel from her duffel bag that sits by her feet.
I’m freshly showered and ready to head home, but realised I’d left my zip-up in here earlier, so came back to grab it.
“Tell him. Maybe he’ll cut me from the team,” I respond with a laugh.
“Evan, you don’t really mean that. You love football.”
“I know, I know, it’s just nanny drama.”
Poppy cocks a brow. “Haven’t found any that compare to Flo?”
Air huffs from me with annoyance. “That’s a bit of an understatement.”
“Told you she’d be great.”
But what you and Mae didn’t tell me, Poppy, is that I’d fall head over heels for the girl. I lift my eyebrows.
