“Shit!” The ball got him in the gut.
“Uncle Noah said a bad word.”
“Sorry, Rosie.” He picked up the birthday girl and swung her around, making her squeal loud enough to pierce an eardrum. “Uncle Buster threw the ball when I wasn’t looking, which was s sneaky thing to do.” He put her down, and she ran to where Billy was talking to Mikey.
“Noah.”
He tensed as Faith arrived.
“Catch.” He lobbed the ball at her. She caught it with ease and sent it long to Brad Gelderman.
“I thought you were over this now.”
“Over what?” He tracked back as the ball came his way. Faith followed. His sister had always been determined.
“This baby birthing thing.”
“I believe the correct term is labor. Left, Gelderman!” he roared. Noah let go and he had to admit it was a good take for a Texan.
“Samantha had complications, Noah. That is not happening here with Annabelle.”
He didn’t like talking about his ex. That was a dark, ugly time in his life that he tried not to think about.
“What are you two discussing? It looks serious.” Newman asked.
“Nothing.”
“Samantha,” Faith replied.
“Ahh.” Newman made a noise in his throat. “I thought we were done with that time in your life.”
“Apparently not.” Faith was standing before him now with Newman at her side, and they were eyeballing him.
“I’m over it. Now can we get back to the game?”
“The game is done, and now that the guests are leaving, we’re going to tidy up and await the arrival of another baby.” Faith said.
“I need to get back to the Howler,” Noah told his sister.
“Why? We have a manager on, it’s not busy, and we both took today off.”
“It’s our business, Faith. Things happen all the time that need one of us to deal with them.”
“He’s running scared because of what happened, and he doesn’t want to be here in case something happens to Annabelle,” Faith said.
“Don’t say that!” Noah snapped. “Nothing is happening to Annabelle!”
“No it’s not,” Newman said calmly. “Now calm the fuck down and have a wedge of cake.”
“I’m calm.”
“This is you being calm, is it?” Faith put her hands on her hips.
Noah clamped his lips together.
“Lani’s gone, and that’s probably because you were grilling her.”
“I was not grilling her. I was just asking politely how Annabelle was doing. Lani would have gone anyway, she’d been trying to do that since she arrived,” Noah said, which was true. The only time Lani had let her guard down was when she’d played ball. Watching her jump for that pass had been something special. Okay, maybe the moveandthe band of flesh she’d exposed around her middle.
