Travis smiled a wet, open-mouthed smile back to his mommy, twisted in his father’s arms, and lurched toward me.
Catching him and pulling him to me, I hoped I’d never forget moments like these. Seeing my baby’s eyes light up when he saw his mommy. Seeing him reach to me. Catching his little warm body in my arms. Little moments that could be easy to forget, but they were so precious they should always be remembered.
I cuddled him to me, kissing his neck, giving him squeezes, listening to his baby giggles as he latched on to my hair and tugged.
It felt wonderful.
I turned away from the door, muttering, “You can drop the bag by the door. Thanks, Aaron.”
“Jesus, I knew I knew you,” Aaron said, and I turned back to see him looking at Joker. “Fuck, you’re Carson Steele.”
I looked Joker’s way to see he was on his feet.
His eyes were on Aaron.
“Yep,” he answered.
Okay, I hadn’t expected that moment to come, since I hadn’t expected Aaron to return Travis. Though I knew it would eventually happen, but I didn’t know that eventuality would come so quickly.
But now it was done and it was family time, Travis, Joker, and me, so it was also time to move on.
“Thanks for bringing him,” I said to Aaron firmly and repeated, “You can drop the bag by the door.”
Aaron looked to me and his brows went up. “You’re dating Carson Steele?”
I looked to Joker then back to Aaron, answering, “Well… yeah.” When he looked at a loss for words, and considering I didn’t really care what he had to say whatever it might be, I again repeated, “Just throw the bag by the door. I’ll sort it out later.”
“You told me I didn’t know who he was,” Aaron pointed out, not taking my not-very-veiled hint that he should go.
I wasn’t going to explain my mess-up to my ex-husband.
So instead, I asked, “Did you know him back in high school?”
“You know I didn’t, not really,” Aaron returned. “But I still knew him, Carissa.”
“Is it necessary to go over this before you take off?” Joker joined in and I turned my gaze back to him to see him staring steadily at Aaron, but doing it looking impatient.
I swung my gaze to Aaron to see he was also studying Joker. Then he drew in breath and turned his attention back to me.
“I need to have a word,” he announced.
Fabulous.
“Shit,” Joker muttered, obviously feeling the same as me.
Aaron’s eyes sliced to him. “You don’t need to be here.”
“Actually,” I said quickly. “This is my house so I get to make that call. And my call is, Joker’s not going anywhere. Now, I have bonding to do with my son. If you need a word, have it, Aaron, so we can get on with our night.”
My heart sank as, when I said this, Aaron took a step in, closed the door behind him, and dropped the diaper bag to the floor.
At this move, I felt tension hit the room, and not just my own, as I cuddled my boy, who still had a fistful of my hair, which he was shoving in his mouth. I carefully extricated it from his grip, and he immediately grabbed on to my top and bent forward, shoving that in his mouth.
All this happened while Aaron looked around.
I knew what he saw. I liked that he saw it because I liked that I was living it and able to give it to Travis. It wasn’t a huge house like the four-bedroom one I’d left that Aaron now lived in with Tory. It was just two bedrooms, one bath, a living room that shared its space with the dining room.
But regardless, it was a very nice one, and that was plain to see.
And the “ex-our” furniture looked fantastic in it.
Aaron gave me his gaze. “This is a great house, Riss.”
Riss.
Ulk.
“Thanks, I know,” I replied.
“Is that the word you wanted to have?” Joker prompted.
Aaron shot him a killing look then turned his attention back to me and promptly rearranged his features.
Ulk again.
“I’m pleased you landed in a nice place,” he told me.
“I am too,” I stated the obvious.
“If you’re goin’ for a tour, not sure I’m big on Carrie obliging,” Joker put in.
Aaron cut his gaze to Joker. “It would help this go faster if you didn’t participate.”
“It would help this go faster if you got to the point,” Joker noted rationally.
I fought back my giggle as I saw Aaron’s jaw grow hard.
“Okay,” I cut in and when I got my ex-husband’s attention, I asked. “Aaron, what do you need?”
He stopped looking annoyed and started looking something I knew very well from him.
Contrite.
I cuddled Travis closer and braced.
“Listen,” he began. “My attorney is going to call your attorney tomorrow, but I thought, since I had you, I’d tell you now. I’m going to have to postpone our meeting.”
I felt more tension in the room, this was mostly mine but definitely some of Joker’s, and I stared at Aaron, knowing exactly what he was up to.
He could attempt to postpone until the cows came home and he would. There were a variety of reasons for this. He could be doing it just to mess with me. He could be doing it because he didn’t want to spend his precious time going to court to battle me. He could be doing it because he knew Angie was the bomb and he’d lose so he wanted to drag out the preliminaries for as long as he could. Or he could be doing it because he thought doing it would wear me down to the point I’d give up.
Whatever he was doing, he was doing for himself with little thought for me.
Or his son.
The same old story.
“Before you jump to conclusions, Riss,” he went on quickly, “I had a big case get pushed up. We’re not ready. We’re in court this week and I’m going from here right back to the office. I’ll be up to my neck in it, and I’ll need to be in court when we’re supposed to have our meeting. The case is going to go for a while, at least a few weeks. Now I’m telling you that I’d appreciate it if you’d have patience with that process.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding,” Joker growled, and Aaron turned angry eyes his way.