She doesn’t say anything to me, she just squeezes my hand in hers, probably to give me comfort. “Daddy,” Nora calls and my father’s head flies to the side, and he smiles when he sees me. Then his eyes immediately go to my hand that is holding Kylie’s, and I swear if anyone makes her feel uncomfortable, I’m going to blow up. “Kylie,” Nora chirps, coming to us. She lets go of my hand so I can catch Nora, who gives me a hug.
“Hey, pretty girl.” I kiss her cheek as she wiggles to get out of my arms.
“I’m going to play with Veronica,” she says, getting down and running over to the other side of the area where the arcade is.
“Knox,” my father greets, coming to me and giving me a hug, “it’s good to see you.”
“Dad,” I say his name, “I would like you to meet Kylie.” I put my hand at her lower back and my father gives her a polite, yet tight, smile. “Kylie, this is my father, Greg.”
“It’s very nice to meet you.” Kylie holds out her hand and she gives him a megawatt smile. “I’ve heard so many stories about you, so it’s nice to finally put a face to a name.” I side-eye her because the only story I’ve told her didn’t paint him in the best light.
He doesn’t say anything, instead his eyes go big as he looks behind me. I look over my shoulder to see my mother walking in with Josephine. The smile on both their faces fall as they see me and then Kylie beside me. I slide my hand in hers, this time I’m the one giving her some added comfort, telling her it’s going to be okay. Westley walks past the two of them and comes straight to me. “Hey, Dad,” he says, giving me a side hug then doing the same to Kylie. “I’m going to go and watch warm-up.” He walks past us and heads to the rink where Vincent will be playing.
My mother stops in front of me and gives me an up and down look, the scowl on her face. “Knox,” she says my name.
“Mom,” I nod at her, “nice to see you.” Her eyebrows go up as she looks at Kylie. “Kylie, this is my mother, Elaine.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Kylie says, and she doesn’t extend her hand to her like she did my father.
“I’d say….” my mother starts. “Knox, don’t you think?—”
“Not now,” my father snaps at her. “You will not do this now.” He grabs her hand. “We’re going to head in and grab seats,” he tells her and they walk into the arena.
That leaves us with Josephine, who is glaring at Kylie as she looks up at me and smiles, pretending she’s not even fazed that my ex-wife is shooting daggers at her.
“I can’t believe this,” Josephine hisses, no doubt annoyed she is being ignored.
I can see Kylie sort of smirk, and then I turn to face Josephine. “You actually brought her here with your family?”
“Yup,” I confirm, not bothering to say another word, then I look over at Kylie. “Do you want to grab a hot chocolate or something before the game?”
“No, baby,” she replies. I want to laugh because she’s never called me that, but the minute she says it Josephine gasps. Score one for Kylie.
“This is ridiculous,” she hisses, “I don’t want her anywhere near my children.” Her voice is starting to go up, and I can see a couple of the other parents looking our way and trying not to stare.
“I’m not doing this with you.” I look at Josephine. “Not here and not at all.”
I start to turn to walk away, and her hand flies up, gripping my arm to stop me. It takes me a second to realize what’s happening, it takes Kylie even less. “You will never,” she seethes, “touch him like that again.” Her voice is low and in control. “Now, before I rip your hand off of him, you are going to gently let him go.” I grip the back of her jeans pulling her to me, but Josephine lets go of my arm and it falls to her side.
“My lawyer will hear about this,” she hisses.
“Really?” Kylie retorts. “That’s all you’ve got?” She shakes her head. “You don’t think you’ve put him through enough?” she asks her as the two of them almost go toe to toe, but Kylie is smiling the whole time while Josephine scowls. “You ruined his whole life and instead of being sorry for it, you’re just being vindictive.” She shakes her head. “And I’m not going to stand around and listen to you shit all over him. Not on my watch.” I put my hand on her hip.
“So you can call your lawyer and spin whatever tale you want to. He’s a great dad and you can’t even deny it.” She points over my shoulder. “I’m not going to let it bother me, and more importantly, I’m not going to let it bother him. So from now on, if I’m around and I hear you spew your bullshit, I’ll get in your face about it because he won’t, but I will. You want to air your dirty laundry,” Kylie shrugs, “let’s go, because I can guess you probably have a lot more than he does.” Josephine just glares at her, not saying a word, and all I can do is smile as I pull Kylie closer to my front. “Now, it was nice to meet you,” she adds, looking around. “You have three amazing children,” she smiles, “and I look forward to getting to know them more.”
Josephine folds her arms over her chest. “We’ll see about that.”
“I guess we will,” Kylie replies then turns to me, putting her hands on my chest. “We should get seats.” I look down and all I can do is smile at her. She was so nervous coming here and so worried about how it would go, and then she just went toe to toe with my ex because she was going to shit on me and Kylie refused to let it happen. She could have caused a huge scene, but instead she was calm, cool, and collected. Not only did she protect me, she also protected my children and what they might have heard through gossip. “If you want, we can save you a seat,” she tells Josephine, and this time she says it loud enough that people can hear her, so it sounds like the three of us are having a mature conversation.
“No, we’re not.” I shake my head. “Absolutely not. I’m not sitting with her,” I finally say softly. “Let’s go before you invite her over for Sunday lunch.” Only when we are a couple of steps away does she lean in.
“They say keep your friends close but your enemies closer.” I pull open the door to the rink. “So I was keeping her closer.”
“I don’t give a shit what whoever says. It’s not going to happen; I’m not having that woman come in our house.” Her eyebrows go up.
“Our house?” she repeats the words.
I roll my eyes and shrug my shoulders. “Whatever, you lived there all week.”
