Her eyes locked on mine. What did she want me to say? I wasn’t opposed to kids; they’d just never been on my radar of must-haves. But now I understood why she’d kept me at bay. Jess was a mother, and I was pretty damn sure I knew who the father was.
A boy broke free from the group and ran up to us. He was a skinny kid with floppy brown skater hair blowing in the wind. He was sporting a cast on his arm, the second relative of hers wearing one today. They were an injury-prone group.
“Mom,” he said, catapulting himself into her. She wrapped her arms around him, kissing him in his wayward hair.
I tried to stay neutral and project the required ‘Relax, girl, I got this’ swagger. But I didn’t ‘got this.’ I was rattled. People didn’t shock me often, but Jess managed to do just that.
She had a kid… a fact that was currently freaking me out. I’d thought I knew who she was, but I didn’t know this woman at all.
The boy disengaged from his mother and squinted up at me. “You’re Quinn McKallister, aren’t you?”
I looked to Jess, wondering what she’d told him about me. “I am.”
“I saw you at the press conference.”
“He was with me that day in the bus.” Jess immediately clarified his statement as if she were always a step behind sweeping up after him. “We saw you talking to the reporters.”
His eyes widened, and he poked her in the stomach. “Wait—areyou Jesserella?”
“I’m never going to live that name down. Yes, I’m Jesserella, but it’s Mom to you. But look at me, Noah.” She lifted his chin up. “Quinn and I are just friends. Don’t be blabbing it all around that we’re anything else, okay?”
“Sure, Mom,” he said, full-on face-winking at her like he didn’t believe a word she was saying but that he’d play along if she insisted.
I laughed. My god. He was like a carbon copy of his mother.
“Quinn, this is my son, Noah.”
I could hear in her tone how difficult this was for her, and it occurred to me then that she didn’t do this very often—introduce men to her son—and even though I was still working my way through the shock, I wanted to make it easier on her. Besides, kids didn’t scare me. I was the fun uncle, and as far as these little booger-eaters went, this one seemed fairly easy.
“Hey, dude,” I said as I bent over and offered a hand for a high five.
Noah readily accepted the greeting, even winding up to take his shot.
“Ouch.” I jumped back, shaking out my hand out. I knew how little boys worked. The more perceived damage they did, the better. “Dang, you’ve got an arm on you.”
“Baseball,” he offered up as explanation.
“Ah, okay, I thought maybe you punched walls or something.”
He laughed. Hysterically. Which, in turn, made me laugh. This kid was full of it. Whateveritwas. I glanced up at Jess. She looked nervous, a row of perfectly lined teeth trapping her lip below. I mustered up a smile even though I was still losing it on the inside.
“Do you have any more of these guys?” I asked.
“Uh…no. Noah is my one and only. He’s eight years old.”
“I’ll be nine soon. Can you come to my birthday party?”
“Oh, I…”
“It’s a ways away, Noah. Quinn might not be in town then,” Jess said, wiping something off his face. “How was school today?”
He looked down to the ground, toeing the dirt.
Uh-oh.Thatdidn’t look promising. I suppressed a smile. The kid was going down.
“I kinda got in trouble.”
“What?” Jess jerked back. “Why?”
