“Okay,” I said.
Okay. FuckingOkay.
How in the fuck did one single word explain everything I was feeling?
And I knew it did because I caught a smile on his face from the corner of my eye.
We were both silent as we parked beside Lila’s car in front of Gushers.
Cole and I hopped out, and when I saw Lila’s door start to open, I growled, “Don’t you fucking dare.”
The door stopped moving.
I made my way to Lila’s door as Cole made his way to Madalyn’s side.
I grabbed the door handle and then opened her door for her, “When you're around Cole and me, you wait for us to get your door. That clear?”
And when the door cleared, she looked up at me with those crystal baby blue eyes of hers that felt as though she could see straight through to my very soul.
She nodded, “Okay.”
After she climbed out, I read what was on the back of her shirt again, then I asked, “When did you get that made?”
She looked over her shoulder at me as she stepped up on the curb, “After his first game.”
I nodded, “Okay, but why that saying?”
She looked up at me as I stepped up on the curb at her side, and then she looked at Cole and Madalyn.
“Can y’all give your Dad and me a minute?” she asked them.
They nodded, then moved a few steps away.
Then once they were moved away, she lowered her voice, those baby blues locked onto mine, “I was sitting there at his game and overheard a few of the football moms. They were bragging about their kids. And then one of them said that it was sad that the best player on the team didn’t have a woman there cheering him on.”
I growled at that.
She nodded, then continued.
“That it must have been something he did when he was a kid to make his mom leave. And Cole was near them, and I knew he heard every word.”
Then she snickered, “So, I had this shirt made and a few others. I went to his practice, walked by that group of women, stopped in front of them, and let them read the back of it. Then I turned my head to them and said, talk about my boy like that one more time, and you’ll find out how much power one of the founding families in this county has. And for your information, that twat was a bitch who didn’t deserve to have the title of Mom. Get your facts straight before you talk about him.”
I processed her words, then recalled the night after a certain game.
Cole had walked through the door, walked right up to me, and said,‘Thank you for moving us here, Dad.’ I thought he was talking about the team, his friends.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
He had been talking about Lila.
Fuck.
Me.
“Done?” I heard Cole call out.
Lila looked around me, smiled, and nodded, “Yep. I’m hungry enough I could eat a horse.”
