Sidelined (35 page)

Besides, if I have to sit around while Macey sees Mitch, I may as well sit around on the sidelines of my favorite kid’s football game and do something useful with my time.

I pull up in the parking lot of his school after a relatively easy drive and tuck my helmet under the seat next to the kid helmet. It’s a given that, as soon as Leo sees my bike, he’ll hop up onto it and demand to go for a ride. Usually, we say no. He doesn’t have a helmet, but this time, I’m prepared.

I sit down next to Corey on the bleachers and nod toward the kids on the field. “They look like little stick insects under all those pads, don’t they?”

He laughs. “Man, their arms are, like, dangling there. I’m sitting here wondering for the millionth fuckin’ time if I looked that damn stupid when I was seven.”

“You still do,” Reid tells him with a grin. “He’ll be happy now that you’re both here. At one point, he told me he was gonna refuse to play if you weren’t here.”

“Strong-willed kid. Maybe he wasn’t kiddin’ earlier when he said he’d smash the yards record.” I smirk.

“How pissed off do you think he’ll be when his dad beats him to it?” Corey asks, his eyebrows raised.

“Still got a fair few yards to go. Got a fair few years left in me, too, so who knows.” Reid’s grin widens.

“How long do you think we have before he realizes we’re here, tells all his friends, and we spend the rest of the evening signing autographs and taking pictures?” I mutter, studiously ignoring the glances heading our way.

“Didn’t we do that last time?” Corey looks around.

“You have to do it every time. It’s a different team every time you come,” Reid laughs.

“If we go down, you’re comin’ with us,” I warn him.

“Yeah, yeah. I know.”

Leo’s final catch wins the game for his team, and we gratefully manage to escape to the parking lot without being wrangled into pictures and autographs. I don’t mind doing it, but with Leo’s games, it ain’t just the kids who want it. It’s the dads, too, and nine out of ten times, the moms don’t care about the autographs, but they’re all too happy to sidle in close for a picture.

Which, when they’re young, is totally okay.

The older ones aren’t quite so enjoyable.

“You brought your bike!” Leo tugs his hand from Reid’s and runs across the lot to me.

“Yep. And guess what?”

“What?”

I pull the small helmet from behind me.

Leo’s gray eyes widen. “Is that for me?”

“Sure is, buddy. You wanna go for a ride?” I shoot a wink over his head to Reid.

His lips tug up as I bend over and secure the helmet onto Leo’s head.

“Don’t tell your dad, but I think the best wide receiver the second grade has ever seen deserves ice cream after that performance. Don’t you?”

“Ice cream? From Peaches?” His eyes light up even more.

“Sure. Wherever you want.” I lift him onto the back of the bike.

“Peaches does the best ice cream. Hey, Dad!” he yells as I get on. “Uncle Jack’s taking me to Peaches for ice cream!”

“Yeah, well, Jack can put you to bed tonight!” Reid retorts, trying not to laugh.

“Hey, you started calling me Uncle Jack. Don’t you know hyping your kid up with every sugar known to America is in my job description?” I laugh, putting my helmet on and telling Leo to hug my waist tight. “I’ll bring him home when we’re done!”

He snakes his little arms around me, and I start the bike. Reid says something, and I quickly flip him the finger as we drive past.

Leo holds me the whole way to Peaches Ice Cream parlor, and when I lift him off the bike, his cheeks are flushed with excitement and there’s a huge smile on his face.

“That. Was. Amazing!” he yells. “Oh my God. I’m going to buy Dad a bike for Christmas so we can do it all the time.”

“You know these are expensive, buddy, don’t you?”

“Yeah. But it’s okay, because I have a pig full of quarters on my shelf. Nan said she’d take me shopping to buy Dad a really awesome Christmas present because he’s so great.”

I smile and ruffle his hair. “Nan might have to help you out with a few quarters.”

I make a mental note to buy Leo a motorized bike for Christmas.

“What kind of ice cream do you want?” I look at the menu on the boards behind the register.

“The toffee sundae. With extra toffee chunks.”

Something tells me that he comes here a lot, and I bet it’s all on Reid’s mom.

“Nan gets me it every time we come here,” he confirms.

“Bet your dad doesn’t know that, huh?”

“No.” He turns wide eyes to me. “Don’t tell him, Uncle Jack! Nan told me if I tell him then she’ll stop letting me watch a movie at bedtime, too.”

Something else tells me that Leo’s favorite weekends are away-game weekends.

“You stayin’ at Nan’s this weekend while we’re in Denver?”

“Yep!”

“Then your secret’s safe with me.” I wink and place our order.

Leo watches raptly as his sundae is created and licks his lips when it’s placed on the counter. I can’t help but smile at his over-the-top reactions to everything, but then again, everything is super-fucking-awesome when you’re seven. So I’ll forgive him for his dramatics.

A high table with stools lined up beneath it spans the width of the window, and Leo makes a beeline for the empty area. I’ve barely grabbed our ice cream before he’s up on the stool with his legs swinging excitedly.

I give him his sundae and sit next to him. Immediately, he launches into a very fast speech about his football games. The monologue is occasionally dotted with silence as he eats his ice cream, but somehow, this kid can chew and swallow toffee quicker than anyone I’ve ever known. I nod along, pretending I know exactly what he’s saying. Truth be told, he’s speaking so damn quick that half of it sounds Russian or something.

Somehow, he finishes the ice cream and he’s still talking.

Yeah, good luck getting him to bed tonight, Reid.

I glance up when I see a familiar head across the street. Squinting, I force my eyes to focus.

On Macey.

She walks out of the café opposite us, Mitch just behind her. They walk a few paces until they reach his blue BMW. Shit. How didn’t I recognize that before? I’ve been looking right at it for a fucking half hour now.

I stay watching them as Macey looks at the floor, her arms wrapped around herself. She shakes her head at something he says, and he runs his fingers his hair before reaching out to touch her face. Jealously coils in my stomach, especially when she doesn’t move away.

Then he drops his head and kisses her.

Every part of my body goes taut with anger.

Fuck. It’s one thing to know he kissed her before.

It’s something else fucking entirely to see it with my own fucking eyes.

It slices through me, and I feel like I’ve just been sucker-punched in my gut. And, Jesus, I want to run over there and shove him the hell away from her.

“Uncle Jack?” Leo tugs at my sleeve just as Macey presses her hands to Mitch’s chest and puts some distance between them.

“Yeah, bud?” I ask, glancing at him.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just thought I saw someone I know.”

“Is it that girl?” He points out the window.

My eyes go back there, and Macey harshly runs her fingers through her hair, speaking to Mitch. He holds his hands out and she shakes her head.

I’ve never wished I were a fly before, but now would be a great time to be on that café wall.

“Is that her boyfriend?” Leo asks.

“No, but he wants to be.”

“Huh. Are you her boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Do you want to be?”

I flit my eyes to him. “You’re way too observant for a kid.”

“Uncle Jack, it’s rude not to answer a question.”

“Yeah, I wanna be her boyfriend, too. That good for you?”

“Yeah. Oh, I think she can see us!”

What the fuck?

Yet again, my stare travels to her, and sure as hell, she’s looking right at us. Our gazes collide, and she wraps her arms around her waist again, something indescribable written all over her face.

“She’s real pretty,” Leo says quietly.

“She sure is.” She’s fucking beautiful.

“She looks like she needs a hug.”

Believe me. If a hug could fix this shit, I’d have fixed it a long-ass time ago.

“You do, too, Uncle Jack.”

Before I can reply, Leo’s leaning over and wrapping his arms around me. I smile slightly and hug him back. Jesus. After the shit his mom put him through, it’s a wonder he can think for himself, let alone be such an incredible and loving kid.

When I look up, Macey’s gone.

His lips. On hers.

It’s rolling around my mind like a fucking incurable disease. It’s spreading through my veins, poisoning me until all I can feel is the gut-punch I felt hours ago and the anger that’s lingered ever since.

Fucking hell, I can’t take it. I can’t fucking take the idea of knowing that his hands have been on her after mine have. That they’ve been there before mine have.

That it’s his fucking lips imprinted on hers right now, his touch she’s remembering. His voice she’s hearing.

Jesus.

So many fucking things are wrong with this. It’s fucked up totally, and if I had any sense, I’d run in the opposite direction and erase every part of her from my life. I’d go back to how it was before, without her, because there’s nothing worse than being turned inside out from not knowing.

The past is a bitch, especially when it ain’t your own fucking everything up.

I leave my half-empty beer on the table and tug my keys from my pocket. You know it’s bad when it takes you two and a half hours to drink half a fucking bottle of Bud.

I get on my bike and drive to Macey’s.

Someone is leaving the building as I’m about to go in, and I grab the door before it shuts so I don’t have to ring her buzzer. I make it up the stairs and bang loudly on her door.

“Macey, open the damn door. I know you’re in there.”

“How?” She pulls the door open a tiny bit and looks at me.

“Your bright-blue Beatle stands out like a fucking LED torch in a power outage. Now, you gonna let me in or not?”

She sighs and opens the door. Instantly, she turns away from me, leaving me to stare at the back of her head. “I know why you’re here,” she whispers.

“Do you?”

“You saw him kiss me.”

“Wrong.”

She turns, and I hold her gaze.

“Baby, I’m here because all I can fucking see is his lips on yours. I can’t fucking think about anything else other than that moment and how much it damn well cut me. And I don’t have a right to tell you what to do. You ain’t mine, but fuck, M. Don’t ever do that again!”

She takes a deep breath and breaks the eye contact. “You know my feelings on all this, Jack, so I don’t see the point of this conversation. I’m not rehashing things I told you only days ago.”

“Yeah, so you’re still stuck in limbo? Jesus, babe. You really think it’s okay for you to fuck me one night and kiss him the next?”