She was right.
She looked to me and grinned. “He’s a total score, Mom. All the girls at school say it. They even get in heated debates about who’s the hottest dad. Amber Spear’s or Aisling Donovan’s.”
“Obviously, it’s Aisling Donovan,” I stated haughtily.
“Totally,” she agreed, still grinning.
My eyes drifted back to the hall as I mumbled, “Maybe I should go to him.”
“Maybe you should let him get used to it,” Pippa advised, shifting up to sit on her knees on Mickey’s couch in his front living room. “He’s gonna have to. Kellan is into Ash big time. They’re both movie freaks. She knows all about boxing. They watch the same TV shows. For high school, all that is serious. They sit with us at lunch but they’re totally into each other and never stop talking.”
The idea of Ash never stopping talking was one I couldn’t wrap my head around.
But I loved that she found a boy she could open up to.
“Anyway, I want some ice cream. Do you think Mickey would mind if I had some ice cream?” she asked.
“No, kiddo. Just ask to see if the boys want some too.”
“Okay, Mom,” she replied, got up and bumped into me playfully as she passed me.
I watched her disappear in the hall and heard her talking to the boys about ice cream and even heard her opening the sliding glass door to make her request for ice cream officially of Mickey. When it was granted, I also heard her asking him if he wanted some too.
When I heard the door close again, I wandered into the hall but stopped at the baby picture of my guy.
I stared at it wondering if his parents knew what a remarkable man he would become.
I moved away from it knowing from experience with Auden and Pippa that they absolutely did.
Five minutes later, the sliding glass door opened and I looked from helping Pip scoop ice cream to the door.
Mickey was about to step in when, eyes never leaving the TV, Cill called, “Get this, Dad! If Ash marries Kellan we’ll have a Kellan and Cillian in the family. Isn’t that hilarious?”
Mickey didn’t answer. He swung right back out the door and slid it shut.
I would have made it if I hadn’t heard Pippa snort.
Since she snorted, I didn’t make it.
So I had to dash to the dining room so Mickey wouldn’t hear me burst out laughing.
*
“Hey, Amy?”
I was wandering down the hall to Mickey’s room where he had moved his brooding after the aftermath girlie discussion took epic proportions and lasted hours (and may have diverted onto other paths, like online shopping on Ash’s tablet).
Auden and Cillian were still attempting to kill people in the family room.
Rhiannon was gone.
As far as I knew, Pippa was still ensconced in Ash’s bedroom, carrying on the aftermath girlie discussion the two moms couldn’t hear.
Now, just Aisling’s head was out her door and she was looking at me.
“Yeah, blossom?”
“Dogfight,” she whispered then grinned a small, sweet grin. “I win.”
After delivering that, she closed the door.
Needless to say, the date went great.
Mickey was in his bedroom brooding.
I was headed that way smiling.
*
I winced even as Auden flipped his opponent to his back.
“Good, bud! Stay at him!” Mickey, sitting beside me, shouted.
“Don’t let up!” Cillian, sitting beside Mickey, yelled.
“Ash and me are gonna go get some sodas,” Pippa, sitting next to me, announced.
She and Ash got up from the bleachers as I looked to them then, with a mother’s sense, turned my head the other way and looked across to the end of the bleachers in the gymnasium.
Kellan was loitering there, eyes to Aisling.
Pippa was Ash’s cover.
They moved in front of us, but Ash abruptly stopped when Mickey’s hand darted out and caught her wrist.
I looked to him to see his head tipped back, eyes on his girl.
“Go to your boy but I don’t lose sight of you, hear me?”
“All right, Dad,” she huffed resignedly and irritably.
He let her go.
Pip aimed an amused grin at me.
I returned it.
The girls took off.
I jumped when Mickey shouted, “That’s it! You got it!” and the rest of our side started clapping.
I looked to my son on the mat just as the referee slapped his hand down and yelled, “Pin!”
Auden took his feet to more applause and Cillian jumping up and down on our bleacher, yelling “Right on! Auden rules!”
At this moment of victory for my son, I felt the hairs stand on end at the back of my neck. I turned my head just in time to catch Conrad looking away from me.
He was alone. No Martine. No Tammy.
A good choice.
It was sad but it was his lonely bleacher he’d made for himself.
I turned to Mickey who was grinning at the mat and clapping.
“You do know you’re going to have to back off this Ash and Kellan thing,” I advised.
He stopped clapping and grinning and looked to me.
“She’s fifteen, she gets more freedom. She’s fourteen, she does not.”
“She’s fifteen next month,” I told him something he knew better than me.
“Then she doesn’t have long to wait,” he retorted and looked away, toward the boys in their clutch patting Auden on the back.
He took it then his eyes went to his dad. After that, they came to me.
I gave him a thumb’s up and some silent clapping.
He shook his head and rolled his eyes but did it grinning.
Then he started pulling on his track suit.
“Look at those mooks,” Cillian stated disgustedly, staring at the two boys now wrestling on the mat. “Auden is the best…ever.”
Mickey slid an arm along my waist and kept it there.
I endured the bone-crushing boredom of watching another bunch of boys—these I didn’t know and love—wrestle, doing this fortified by Mickey’s arm around me.
Then, thankfully, it was over and we all went home.
*
I knocked on the door to the locker room.
It flew open and I found myself flying in because Mickey’s hand latched onto my wrist and he pulled me in.
He looked out the door he had his other hand on.
“Kids in their seats?” he asked the hallway.
“Yes, Mickey,” I breathed.
He slammed the door, locked it and shoved me against the cinderblock wall.
Then, in his boxing trunks and shoes, upper body bare and still slicked with sweat, he dropped to his knees in front of me.
“Mickey,” I panted.
His hands taped from the fight he just lost to Jake, he pushed up my pencil skirt.
“Are you okay?” I asked, noting (in what I had to admit was a distracted way) the red welling on his cheek.
He didn’t answer.
He ripped down my panties.
I sucked in a breath.
He tipped his head back, sliding a hand up the side of my high-heeled Jimmy Choo boot.
“Like these boots, baby,” he whispered.
“I…good,” I mumbled.
He slid his hand back down, grasped my ankle, tossed it over his sweat-glistened shoulder and dove right in.