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Was I bleeding?
If she’d swung a steel beam into my balls, it would’ve had less of an impact. I held her relentless gaze for only a moment before conceding to the winning blow.
Her phone screen lit up on the table, and the picture saved as her background image snagged my attention.
It was Mira—cheesy smile, messy face, and her mum’s eyes.
I rubbed at my chest, surprised that I could still feel my heart working.
Zoe noticed me staring and took a quick glance at the phone. “Forgive me for being rude; I need to answer a question for the babysitter.”
A hundred questions sprang to the tip of my tongue, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t hold the first one back. “Who’d you leave her with?”
I felt her eye roll more than I saw it, because her fingers were flying across the screen. “Rosa lives across the street from me, so she was Chris and Amie’s neighbor too. She raised four kids and has twelve grandkids, so she’s perfectly capable, I promise.” Zoe set the phone down, then settled back in her chair with a dejected slump. “She’s been ... helping.”
Byron took the silent moment after her statement to raise his hands. “I think maybe we should take a five-minute break and get a drink, maybe cool our heads a little bit now that the shock has worn off.”
Slowly, I arched my eyebrows. “Has it now?”
Most of the rookies hated it when I talked to them like that. They’d shrink back into their lockers when I used that tone. Because they knew it meant they should proceed with caution, if they’d done something to piss me off.
“I can’t imagine how hard this must be for both of you,” he continued, undeterred. “Zoe, you’ve done a wonderful job with Mira, from what I’m told.”
She sighed. “Thank you. She’s ... she makes it easy.” Her voice gentled. “Mira is a great kid.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
My skin was too tight and my temper too fragile, fraying at the edges like a rope about to snap. I pinched my eyes closed, conjuring her smiling little face. I hadn’t seen her for at least a month, during one of my last visits to Chris and Amie’s.
It hurt to remember them. Remember how things used to be.
But sometimes I did exactly that—drowned myself in the past because the pain was so much better than the sadness.
With my eyes closed to the people watching me, I clawed up the memory.
Mira was tugging at the hem of my shorts, grabbing for whatever food Amie had prepared for us. “This is my dinner, kid,” I told her. “Don’t you get your own?”
Amie laughed, scooping Mira up into her arms to blow a raspberry into the little girl’s neck. Her giggle pulled a reluctant smile to my face.
“You talk to her like you talk to the team,” Amie teased. “Here.”
Then she deposited Mira in my arms and laughed at the shock on my face. “I don’t know how to hold kids,” I told Amie. Mira squeezed my nose, and I made a low growling noise that made her laugh.
She pinched my nose a second time, then smiled that little smile, with bright-white teeth and eyes that shone expectantly.
So I made the noise again.
Amie grinned at us, patting me on the arm. “See ... you do just fine, Liam. You just need a little push every once in a while.”
I swiped a hand over my mouth now, pulling out of the memory before it could make things worse.
“Mr. Davies,” the lawyer said, “if you don’t think you need a break, please take a seat, and we’ll start going through all of this.”
I didn’t move. “Don’t need to take a seat.”
