“Devin. It’s your mother.” I’m confused for a second but it’s promptly replaced with panic. My mother is at my house, here in New York. The house I don’t live in anymore. “Your father and I are here with Ashleigh and Conner.”
“Okay” is all I say, because what else can I do?
“Okay?” she mimics, stupefied.
“Meet me at my place.” I pause. “My other place. Ashleigh can tell you the address.”
“Devin, I don’t think—”
“I’m not going over there, Mom, so your option is stay with her or come to my house,” I say firmly. “This isn’t your problem to fix.”
“See you shortly,” she says with a hard snap to each word. It’s the same way she talked to me when I was a teenager and she didn’t like my attitude.
Twenty minutes later, as I turn onto my street, I’m so nervous I want to puke. My dad and son are sitting on the stoop. I can hear Conner chattering away and I know he’s playing a game of I Spy as they look out at the park across the street. My mother is pacing on the sidewalk below them, arms crossed and a heavy scowl creasing her normally serene, fair face. Her blue eyes lock on me as I walk toward them and the frown deepens.
She doesn’t reach to hug me like she usually does. Instead she just stands and scowls. I scowl back. “What are you doing here?”
“You play Jordan tomorrow night. We always try to come to the games you two play together,” she reminds me, something that’s been happening since my middle brother joined me in the league. I should have been prepared for this. I completely forgot we were playing the Winterhawks.
I nod at my mother curtly. “Right. Did you ring the bell or try the door?”
“Why would I do that?”
I was hoping Callie would talk to them before I got here. If she’s in the brownstone, she didn’t see them out front. The one time I’m banking on her big mouth to ease this for me and it didn’t happen. Fuck. My. Life.
“Come inside,” I say quietly.
Conner grins at me as I climb the stairs toward him. He looks so excited he could burst. I can’t help but smile back at him and scoop him out of my father’s arms. This kid, I remind myself, was worth marrying the wrong girl for. I swing open the door to my rental, and my father lifts his graying eyebrow because it was unlocked and there is a pile of high-heeled shoes and boots by the door as we cross the threshold.
“Someone else living here?” he asks in a tone coated in shock and dripping with condemnation.
“Yeah,” I say sharply. “But it’s not what you think. Thanks for having faith in me, though, Dad.”
“Devin,” my mother chastises and I ignore her.
“Hey! I’m home!” I call out.
I hear footsteps and heavy breathing. Callie rounds the corner from the kitchen holding a bottle of water up to her lips. She’s wearing a tight gray tank top and a pair of tiny running shorts. Her long, chestnut hair is pulled back in a high ponytail and there’s a slick sheen to her smooth skin. Her back is to us and she’s swaying her curvy little hips to whatever is pouring out of her earbuds and into her ears. I have an instant, uncontrollable urge to still those hips with my hands and glide my lips over the damp skin on her neck.
Before I can quell the urge and calmly tap her on the shoulder, she spins—part of her little dance—and her eyes widen in shock when she sees her audience. I literally see what her brain is processing all over her face—fear because my parents are here, shock because she knows they must know and relief because she’s happy she’s not hiding this for me anymore.
“Donna! Wyatt! Oh my God! Hi!” She runs toward them and skitters to a halt short of a hug. “I’m disgusting. I just had a run.”
“I don’t care in the least,” my dad replies and pulls her into a hug. “How are you, sweetheart?”
I know my mom loves the girls equally, but I think my dad has always had the softest spot for Callie. She hugs him back and she’s smiling from ear to ear. She’s so beautiful when she lets all her defenses down like that.
“I’m great! I didn’t know you were coming!” she says and her eyes scoot to me quizzically as Donna hugs her too, despite the sweat. “Did Luc talk to you?”
My dad glances over at me and frowns. “Luc knows about this?”
“Who else knows?” my mother wants to know.
“Callie told Luc and Rose when she found out,” I inform them. “I don’t know who they’ve told.”
“They’ve told no one,” Callie assures everyone. “I told them to keep quiet.”
My mother sighs again. Conner interrupts and asks if he can watch his favorite Disney movie for the hundredth time. I take him into the living room and turn on his movie as he settles on the couch. I walk back into the kitchen and find my mother and Callie whispering at the island.
