“I thought I was taking you to school.”
“You were, but then the babies came in so I texted Mack.” She beams when she says his name. Paige goes to the stroller and talks to the boys. When she gets to Juniper, her baby smile widens and she coos. “I love you, Princess. I’ll see you after cheer practice. Bye, Noah.”
When her and Mack are gone, I ask Noah, “What does she do at your house after school?”
“Mostly, homework. Talisa takes care of anything Peyton and I can’t get done or Grandma does. Paige comes over and teaches the kids about her math, she reads to them, plays games. She’ll entertain them while Peyton gets dinner ready or pumps.”
“Does she do this every day?”
Noah nods and looks over his shoulder at his wife coming toward him with breakfast. He gets up, takes everything from her and then follows her back to the table. Noah makes sure Peyton’s situated before he sits back down.
“Yes,” he says moments later.
“Yes, what?” Josie and Peyton ask at the same time.
“I’m telling him that Paige comes over every day after school to be with the kids.”
Peyton nods. “I know I’m lucky and have a ton of help, but Paige’s help is different. She plays with them, talks to them like they understand her. The other day, she was teaching them some complex math problem, and I swear Jace understood everything she said.”
I reach under the table and squeeze Josie’s hand, and wonder if she thinks the same as me, we got damn lucky in the kid department.
By late morning, just as I am about to sit down at my desk and pretend to work, Noah calls and tells me the paint job at the tower is a two-man job and asks if I could come help.
When I get there, I groan. Someone’s done a number on the lower part of the tower, and it isn’t pretty.
“Who writes shit about my daughter?”
“The girls at school who want to date Mack is my guess.”
“Are there a lot?”
“Way more than I had,” Noah says.
I turn at the sound of crunching gravel. The car parks, and my frenemy gets out dressed in scrubs.
“Sorry, Doc. No babies to be delivered here.”
“Funny, considering I don’t do that.” He comes and stands next to me. “What in the hell?”
“Yeah,” I say, sighing and trying to hold my anger in. I want to scream, punch something, and then shake the shit out of whoever did this.
Before us, spray painted multiple times reads: Paige Westbury is a slut
“Let’s get this covered up before either her or Mack see this,” Nick says. “And I’ll have a long talk with the team about coming forward if they know something.”
“Until they do, the gates are closed. No more water tower,” I say as I grab my paint brush and start covering the words. Closing the water tower will send a message. Long before I was in high school, this was the place to come to after a game. There are many, and I do mean many, memories here. This was where I told Josie I was going to marry her, where we made numerous promises to each other, and where Nick asked me to help him with Mack.
It could be the place where other memories are made, but not until the next generation learns how to treat it and people with respect.
I showup to the studio covered in paint. I want to tell Paige that we aren’t going to record, but then I think better of it. She was ecstatic about the stats her video last night produced, and I don’t want to ruin the momentum or her hard work.
Especially if she were to find out about the water tower.
I had a long talk with Josie, with my frenemy by my side because he felt like it was a “family” conversation since Mack and Paige are dating, and we decided not to tell Paige. Should she know, yes. Does telling her change the fact that we don’t know who did it, no. Nick’s convinced once the guys know the water tower is closed, someone will come forward. I told Nick to remind them who owns it. Maybe that’ll scare them.
“Could’ve showered,” Paige says as I sit down. I roll my eyes, put the cans on, and take my first call.
“You’re on The Love Line with Liam.”
