Mia was Daddy’s girl. “I know. I’ll do something special for them. Maybe after their game tonight, I’ll take them out to dinner.”
“I guess you’ll be bringing Starla?”
Jared chewed on that for a minute. It probably wasn’t something Starla would want or feel comfortable doing, but if she did, why not? “Would you have any objections?”
“I guess not. They talk about her so much, I know they’d be happy to see her.”
“Thanks, Shelly. Again, I’m sorry.” He drew a breath. “I know this hurts you.”
She injected that familiar brave steel into her voice, the tone he’d heard time and again during their arguments when she was trying to hide her pain. “I’m done being hurt. Now I only want to keep my kids from being hurt.”
He heard the silent by you she added to the end of both those statements. He chose to ignore them. “Me too.”
Chapter Twenty-one
If someone had told her even a couple of months back that she would be attending a pixie softball game tonight, Starla would have bet them a million dollars they were full of shit. As she strolled into the town softball complex at Jared’s side, she would have owed someone a million fucking dollars.
Kids were everywhere, running, rolling down the hills that sloped toward the playing fields, careening madly down the sidewalks on kick scooters. Parents were everywhere too, milling about and chatting before the games began. The air smelled of hot dogs and cheese sauce, and damn, she was hungry. Stress had been catching up with her, wrecking her appetite for most of the day. After breakfast and Jared’s departure, she had gone to the hospital and visited with Candace. One of her regulars had texted her just after noon asking for a cover-up, so she’d met the girl at Dermamania and spent a welcome couple of hours working—although being there in Brian’s domain had been painful. It felt wrong somehow. Financial need had won out over sentiment, though. She needed all the money she could get.
Before she knew it, five p.m. had come and gone and she hadn’t so much as eaten lunch. Now it would be at least another hour and a half before she could eat. Little girls ran about in their brightly colored uniforms with their wild knee-high socks and adorable ponytails, excited for the games to start. Starla wanted to recoil in horror at the sight, but she kept her head high.
She’d been here before; she used to do this. But as one of those excited girls, not alongside one of the parental units. And, she began to notice, she and Jared were getting looks.
For perhaps the first time, reality slapped her in the face. In the cocoon of Jared’s safe house, nestled in his safe arms, nothing could hurt her. But he was popular, his name and family were well-known in town, and these—these softball moms in their sparkly team T-shirts—were his people.
They weren’t hers, and it showed in the way some of them looked her up and down as she walked at his side. Some of those gazes were blatantly hostile, some merely curious. But she felt each and every one. She was probably overreacting. Most people didn’t pay her much attention at all, but whenever someone stopped to chat with Jared, she almost always got a once-over. Usually from the wives.
He always introduced her as his good friend—she wanted to really shock one of these bitches and clarify it was the mutually shared orgasms that bound them. And the murderous psycho who was chasing her, of course. But she wouldn’t be back if she started alienating people.
Did she want to come back?
“There’s Shelly and the girls,” Jared said, and all her internal organs seemed to freeze up at once. She’d known the moment was approaching—coming face-to-face with the dreaded ex—but she damn sure hadn’t been looking forward to it.
He led her to the field on the left, to the dugout on the far side where a gaggle of neon-green-suited girls were clustered around their coach. Immediately, Starla picked out Ashley and Mia from the group and grinned. They were adorable in matching pink headbands with their names written on the front. Jared tapped the cyclone fence a couple of times to get the attention of the brunette woman standing in the dugout watching the team with her hands on her hips, and she turned and smiled, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head. “Made it after all.” Her voice was clear and honey sweet.
“I said I would.”
“We might need you to coach third, if you would. Andy has the flu.”
“Whatever you need.”
As they talked, the sinking feeling in Starla’s stomach turned into a black abyss. One thing had become staggeringly apparent on first sight: Shelly was quite possibly a more beautiful version of Macy. But she was a little thicker and had a bodacious ass.
Starla had never had hang-ups about her own ass, but suddenly she felt lacking in that area. Jared probably missed having that to grab on to. She wanted to throw up.
He didn’t miss it that much, or he would still be with her. Right? Suddenly, the other woman’s clear voice sliced through her agonized thoughts. Shelly was speaking to her.