There it was. So simple. So easy. It just came out.
“And that scares the hell out of you,” Brian finished for her. In the past, she might have expected him to scoff, toss a “whatever” at her, not take her seriously at all. Whether it was the circumstances or something he heard in her voice or saw in her face, he didn’t do any of that. He only nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. “Been there. You know I have. I think you also know what my advice would be.”
Starla’s gaze drifted to the hospital door through which Candace had exited earlier. “I’m pretty sure I do.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“Daddy, is Starla coming to our game?”
“No.”
“Why not? She didn’t come to the last one either.”
Dammit. When would they give it up?
Sighing, Jared hit the blinker to turn into the softball field parking lot. He didn’t know what to tell his two eager little girls. Crush their spirits with the fact that Starla probably wouldn’t ever come to one of their games again? Or keep giving them false hope and wait for them to eventually forget about it?
No such luck with these two.
“Do you not like her anymore?” Mia asked, meeting his gaze directly in the rearview mirror. Looking so much like her mom when she was sad, with her big brown doe eyes peering at him from underneath her headband. He wanted to give her everything she wanted in life, but he couldn’t give her this.
“I do like her.”
“Did you have a fight?”
“Something like that.”
“Tell her you’re sorry,” Ashley said.
“Send her flowers,” was Mia’s advice.
Ah, the innocence of youth. If only things could be that easy.
He thought about her often enough. Shit, that was putting it lightly. Whenever he looked at his couch, he saw Starla sitting there. Felt her phantom at his side every time he slid into bed. He should never have allowed her in there with him, should have kept her at arm’s length, kept the pace between them slow. He should have been stronger. For her, if not for himself.
“Dad, just tell her you love her.”
Jared could almost laugh at Mia’s exasperation, but her words cut him to the bone. He considered and rejected about a dozen responses, finally settling on sullen silence. By the time they parked, the girls had moved on to a different topic.
Shelly told him they needed him on the field again tonight, which was the last place he should be given how scrambled his thoughts were. He tried to keep his head in the game, but his gaze kept straying to the bleachers where Starla had sat. Her voice had no doubt carried across all three fields when she’d yelled at that umpire. Hell, they needed her out here.
They lost the game, their first loss this season. All the girls on the team had pretty much played like he felt. Shelly handed out consolatory high fives in the dugout, but after receiving theirs, Ash and Mia plopped down on the bench and pouted.
“Can’t win ’em all, kiddo,” he said, lightly prodding Mia’s Nike with his much larger boot. In seasons past, she’d always taken the losses harder than her sister, and it appeared nothing had changed.
Ashley looked up at Shelly, her eyes alight with a sudden idea. “Can you and Dad take us for pizza?”
Shelly shifted uncomfortably. Jared, who had begun packing the girls’ gear away, paused and glanced at her. They had made plans to swap the girls after the game, so he would leave it up to her, though it was the last damn thing on this earth he wanted to sit through. They tried to do things like this occasionally, but tonight was not the night. “Baby, I have a lot of stuff to do at the house,” Shelly told her. “You both still have homework. Some other time, okay?”
Mia chimed in. “Please?”
“Mimi, listen to your mom.” He hitched their bags over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Within a minute, the girls had run ahead to join a group of their friends on the way toward the parking lot. Feeling awkward as hell, Jared fell into step beside his ex-wife, both of them strolling a few paces behind the group of giggling girls.
“Sorry,” Shelly muttered. “Just not in the mood.”
“Me either.”
“How are things?”
He shrugged. “Fine. You?”
“Fine. I figured you might have plans with the girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Trouble already?” Suddenly, she waved a hand in front of her face as if to slap that thought aside. “None of my business. Never mind.”
“Sure it is. I just don’t think she and I are right for each other.” Though it damn sure felt like it at the time.