Page 46 of Protective Phlox

I hadn’t thought about it like that, but I guess he was right. “There are other dads sitting over there.” I pointed.

“Have you noticed they look the part? Jeans, shorts, T-shirts and polos. They have strollers and coffee from down the street. We seriously look like we are up to no good.”

“You worry too much,” I said and crossed my arms, my eyes following Cutter as he climbed up the ladder to the platform that would take him to the slide.

“Why are we here anyway?”

“Do you really think my son wants to hang out with me in the office all day? Besides, Savannah said he has a hard time making friends, and keeping him away from other kids isn’t going to help.”

“So this is a social experiment?”

I shot him a glare. “No, you dick. My son is not an experiment. I’m trying to give him the space to be a normal kid.”

“Honestly, you just sound like Titus when he needs to socialize a new puppy. Oh, we could get him a collar.”

“Don’t make me kill you in front of these kids,” I said, and Aaron laughed.

We hadn’t spent a whole lot of time together since I quit hockey. He still played pickup with a couple of competitive rec leagues and worked as the manager at three of my locations, which kept him on the move all the time. Not to mention the list of girls he was always dating and dropping like they were disposable. Aaron brought a whole new meaning to the term, man whore. We’d had to have a few talks about not fucking the girls who worked at the clubs.

“You won’t kill me. You’ll never find someone else who can sell out a Wednesday night like I can.”

That made me smile. “True.”

“Are you really okay with this? I mean, I never saw us getting married, not like this. Dimitri was always going to force us to marry, but it was more for show than anything else. I definitely never want kids or to settle down with one person. That seems torturous. Like eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day. Eventually, you need a nice steak with a spicy peppercorn sauce, or maybe a pizza with all the toppings, hell four pizzas at once.”

“Are you comparing your sex life to food?”

“I’m hungry. It’s the only thing I can think about,” he said, and right on cue, his stomach growled. “See?”

“To answer your question, I never thought about any of this until I met Savannah. Cutter was a surprise, but I’ve wanted her every day since we decided to go our separate ways. She’s like the whole buffet, including dessert,” I said and smirked as Aaron’s stomach growled again.

“I’m happy for you. I just don’t think this life is for me. Dimitri did find someone for me to marry. He made the arrangements, but I don’t meet them until next summer.”

I turned my head away from Cutter and stared at the side of Aaron’s face. “No man, don’t tell me….”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, she doesn’t graduate until then.”

I rolled my eyes. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Ah!” The sound of Cutter’s scream had me up and running before I knew what was even wrong. He was sitting in the sand, cradling his arm, his eyes full of tears, but he was holding them back even as his lip quivered.

“What happened,” I asked, squatting down, but he was covering his arm so I couldn’t see it. Cutter looked up to the top of the jungle gym, where a boy was glaring down at him.

“I need to see your arm,” I said, and he shook his head. “Let me take a look, and we will stop at the ice cream place on our way home.”

“Bribery, great parenting skills there,” Aaron chirped at me.

“Shut it,” I hissed under my breath.

“The one with the really big cups and like ten scoops of ice cream?”

“Yup, that’s the place,” I said. Cutter looked down at his arm and then slowly moved his other one away. I sucked in a sharp breath but kept calm. His wrist was twisted at an odd angle and very obviously dislocated. He would probably need a cast. Great, Savannah was going to kill me.

“Loser, maybe you should watch where you’re going,” the boy above us snarked. He looked to be three or four years older, and Aaron grabbed me before I could jump to my feet and grab the little twerp.

“You pushed me.”

“No, I didn’t. Don’t lie, you big baby.”