Spencer
“So you and my mom, huh?” Chris asked from the passenger’s seat of my car.
I wasn’t sure he was referring to the past or present. Still, I responded, “Yup, me and your mom.” I gave him the side-eye. “You okay with that?”
“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”
“I know it’s been the two of you for a long time, and I don’t want you to think I’m…” I didn’t want to put words in Hallie’s mouth. We weren’t a couple yet, and I had no right to let Chris believe we were. “Uh, trying to take time away from you. I know how busy your mom is, and maybe you like having her all to yourself?”
He shook his head. “She’s cool to hang out with, but she needs someone in her life.”
This kid was way too mature, but I supposed that was because it had been the two of them forever. “You think so?”
“Yeah. She never talks about dating or anything, but I think she gets lonely sometimes.”
“What makes you think that?” I knew I had no right to ask, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to know if there was a void in Hallie’s life I might be able to fill.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Sometimes I see her watching the other parents, at my games or whatever, and it seems like she might want that. You know, someone to be with like that.”
I nodded as I curled my hand around the steering wheel of my BMW, making the same turn I’d made a hundred times before. It had been years since I’d been to her parents’ house, but I remembered it like it was yesterday.
“You must like kids,” Chris said, sounding hesitant. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be doing what you do, right?”
“I like kids,” I confirmed, smiling at him.
“How come you don’t have any then?” He blushed before dipping his head to hide his eyes behind his longish, side-swept sandy-blond bangs. “Sorry, Mom would tell me not to ask a question like that. None of my business.”
I chuckled, trying to make him feel at ease. “It’s okay, kid. You can ask me anything you want. I don’t mind.”
“Really?”
“Really.” I could tell he still wanted an answer to his question, so I said, “I’d really like to have kids of my own someday.”
He considered that for a minute before he said, “I think my mom would like more kids too.”
“Oh yeah? What makes you think that?”
“You know my Aunt Cassidy?”
“Sure, we’ve met.” Hallie’s older sister had already been living out of state when we dated, but she had come home to visit once.
“She had a baby a few months ago.” He rolled his eyes. “I guess it was a surprise since they were supposed to be done having kids. They already have three.”
I grinned. “Guess it happens sometimes.” I didn’t know how much Chris knew how the birds and the bees, but it sure as hell wasn’t my job to fill him in.
When I pulled into his grandmother’s driveway, Chris took his seatbelt off but didn’t seem eager to get out as he turned to face me. “Mom was going crazy over the baby. She wouldn’t put her down.”
Something shifted inside of me when I imagined Hallie holding a newborn. Damn, I was already in deep with this girl. It was like no time had passed, and the all the old feelings I’d thought were buried deep had come back to the surface to remind me how good we’d been together.
“I asked her if she wanted another baby, and she said she might.”
“Huh.” I was drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, unsure how to respond. He was looking at me like he expected me to say more, but I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was after.
“I’ve always wanted a kid brother,” he said after an awkward pause. “You got any brothers or sisters?”
“Yeah, two brothers. One works at the academy.” I saw the light on in the kitchen, and a figure moved past the window. Linda was probably wondering why we were sitting in the driveway instead of coming in. “Uh, I’m sure you’ll meet my brother soon enough.”
He nodded. “Is he a good soccer player too?”
At least we were off the subject of babies. “Yeah, he went to a Division I school on a scholarship and played in the North American Soccer League for eight years.”
“How come you didn’t do that?” Chris asked. “Play in the NASL when you were done in Europe?”
“I turned down a couple of offers,” I admitted. “Even a coaching offer. I guess I was ready to come home.”
“How come you never called my mom when you came back to the States?”
Damn, we were back to the awkward questions again. I rubbed the back of my neck, wondering if I could send Linda a telepathic message that I needed to be rescued from her inquisitive grandson. “We hadn’t been together for ten years. I assumed she was married with a couple of kids by then.”
He rubbed on the strap of his backpack, which was stowed on the floor by his feet, his gaze on the action. “I never knew my dad.”
“Would you like to?” I asked, my heart going out to the kid. No one should ever feel unwanted or unloved, and while I knew Hallie was an amazing mom, it must have still cut deep for Chris to know his dad didn’t want him.
“I don’t know.” He swallowed. “Sometimes I think I would. Other times I think I’d spit in his face if I ever saw him.”
“That’s fair,” I said, thinking I’d probably feel the same way in his position. I’d always been close with my old man because he’d always been there for me. If he hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t have had any use for him either. “You’re entitled to feel any way you want about him, buddy. I’m sure your mom would tell you the same.”
“She doesn’t talk about him,” he said, his expression grim. “When I was like four or five, I used to ask her questions about him, but she’d always blow me off, so I quit asking.”
“Maybe she’d feel differently if you asked her now,” I suggested. “Could be she thought you were too young to handle the truth back then.” I knew nothing about the deadbeat we were talking about, but I couldn’t imagine he was much of a man to do what he’d done.
“Maybe,” he said sighing as he reached for the door handle. “But I don’t wanna upset her. She’s got enough to deal with, ya know?”
“I’m sure.”
“Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem. You think your grandmother would mind if I came in to say hello? I haven’t seen her in years.”
“No, come on in. Nan likes havin’ people over.”
I got out of the car and locked it while he headed up toward the house. The house was an older bungalow on a nice piece of property surrounded by well-maintained homes. Linda’s flowers were a testament to her green thumb. I remembered, even back then, gardening was one of her passions.
“I don’t believe my eyes!” Linda said, meeting us at the door. “Spencer MacKay! Get over here and give me a hug!”
I laughed as I gave her a hug and she kissed my cheek. “It’s good to see you, Linda. I was real sorry to hear about Charlie. He was a great guy.”
“Thanks, honey. We all miss him.”
Chris was watching our exchange with interest. “You knew my papa too?”
“Sure did, buddy,” I said, squeezing his shoulder. “He was one of the good guys. You were lucky to have him in your life.”
Chris nodded in agreement. “I miss him.”
Linda and I exchanged a look before she said, “I saved you some of those peanut butter cookies, honey. Why don’t you go on in and have some?”
“Okay!”
Linda sighed as she sat down on the old porch swing. “Charlie loved that boy so much. Hated that he didn’t have a father.”
“Yeah, we were talking about that in the car.”
“You were?” Linda asked, wide-eyed. “He brought it up?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. He never talks to anyone about his dad. He must really like you.” Her gaze lingered on mine. “And trust you. How’d you manage that… in no time at all?”
I sat down on a chair next to the swing. “I can hear the warning in that question. That boy’s been hurt enough. Don’t get too close and break his heart again, right?”
“Spencer, I’m not sure if Hallie’s told you this, but my grandson worships you.”
I thought he was an amazing kid, and I wanted him to like me, but I didn’t want him putting me up on a fucking pedestal. If he knew about some of the shit I’d done, he wouldn’t think so highly of me.
“I promise I’ll be careful,” I said, looking her in the eye. “And you know Hallie’s on guard. Honestly, she won’t let me get too close until she knows… it’s going somewhere.”
“Then you’re still testing the waters?”
“I guess.”
She pursed her lips.
“What? You don’t approve?” I’d always known Linda to be a straight shooter, so I expected an honest opinion from her now.
“It’s not like you’re strangers. You already know each other.”
“We knew each other,” I corrected. “We’ve both changed a lot since then.”
“I suppose.” She looked at me. “You feel like strangers then?”
I smirked. It was obvious where she was going with this. “No, it doesn’t feel that way to me. Not at all. In fact, it feels like no time has passed at all.”
“It’s like that sometimes, isn’t it?” She smiled. “I have a friend who used to live in that house across the street,” she said, pointing at a modest, red brick bungalow with black shutters. “She didn’t live here all that long, maybe three years. But our kids were small, and we used to take them to the park together all the time. We were going through all the normal trials young mothers do, and there were days she felt like a lifeline to me.”
“You still talk to her?”
“That was my point,” she said, nodding. “She still comes back to see me now and again, and we pick up right where we left off every time. She was one of my best friends then and still is, even though we hardly ever see each other.”
“You talk and email though, right?”
She laughed. “Believe it or not, I don’t have a computer.” She slapped my knee. “I don’t even text! I’m a dinosaur, I know.”
I smiled. “Not so different from my parents.” Though I’d managed to drag my mother into the twenty-first century a few years ago with a laptop and email, my old man was still resisting.
“Anyhow, this friend of mine, Janice, lives in Australia, so the time difference makes it almost impossible to talk. That’s why we treasure our rare visits. It gives us a chance to reconnect.” She looked at me a long time before she said, “I used to ask my daughter why you two didn’t stay in touch.”
“I wanted to.”
“I know. But she told me it would be too painful.” She bit her lip as though she was debating whether she should voice her thoughts. “She loved you so much. You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded, swallowing a lump of emotion. “I loved her too.”
“When Chris started talking about your soccer academy, I had to admit I wondered if it was fate.” She sat back, crossing her arms. “You think so?”
“I don’t know.” I wasn’t a big believer in fate, but I didn’t know how to explain the fact that Hallie was back in my life after all the years I’d spent wondering what had happened to her. “Maybe.”
“I heard you’ve really stepped up, offering to take Chris to soccer practices?”
“It’s no big deal,” I said, shrugging. “I’ve done it for other kids whose parents work late.”
“It’s a big deal to Hallie. Aside from her dad and me, she’s never had anyone to help with Chris.”
My breath was shaky as I released it. I was battling so many emotions, and it felt like my feelings for her had come out of nowhere, slamming me. “She’s so cautious, with good reason, but I’m afraid she’ll have a hard time letting me in. Chris is her world—”
“You were her world once too.”
I closed my eyes, remembering our tearful good-bye right at the end of this very driveway. I’d watched her walk up to her parents’ door, and it had taken everything in me not to go after her. I was so fucking close to dropping to one knee and asking her to marry me that night, but I knew it wouldn’t be the best thing for her. She still had a lot of life to live then, and I had to let her.
“And she was mine, Linda.”
“She got married because she was afraid, I think.”
“Of what?”
“Being alone, never finding someone to love her the way you did.”
“Did he?” I swallowed, wrestling with the anger. “Love her?”
“I suppose he did,” she said, pursing her lips. “In his own way. But it wasn’t…” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t say this, but it wasn’t like it was with you.” She looked me in the eye. “You changed her. Those months with you... we’d never seen her so happy.”
“It’s hard,” I admitted. “Being caught up in the past, remembering the way it used to be, being frustrated ‘cause it can’t be that way again.” I knew there was no way we could go back. We’d been kids then, no real responsibilities other than the commitment I’d made to my team and she’d made to school.
“But you can’t live in the past,” she said. “You’re different people now. You’re contemplating a real, grown-up relationship here. And the fact that there’s an impressionable young boy involved only makes it harder.”
“Yeah, it does.”
She smiled. “But it can also make it better, having Chris in your life.”
“No doubt.” I already liked the kid, and I felt bad for him. Learning to love him wouldn’t be hard.
“Pretty hard not to love a man who treats your boy like his own.” She winked at me. “I’m just saying…”
She was telling me I could break down Hallie’s defenses by showing her how much I cared about her son. “I want to be a dad,” I admitted. “I think I’m ready.”
She laughed. “Honey, you have to be sure you’re ready. Because that’s one thing you can’t back out of.”
“Yeah, I know.” I understood a thing or two about hard work and commitment. I wouldn’t have gone as far as I had professionally if I hadn’t been willing to work twice as hard for twice as long as every other kid on the field every day.
“I know you know.” She stood. “You wanna come in for some lemonade?”
“No, I’m gonna head home. I’ve got some thinking to do, Linda.”
“I imagine you do.” She patted my cheek with a warm smile. “It sure was good seeing you again, honey.”
“You too,” I said, giving her a hug.