Page 20 of Lowering His Guard

“Let’s go.” I motion to the door.

He hurries to the door – probably excited to get away from his old man for the day – but I stop him.

“Where’s your bag?”

“Oh, right.” He whirls around and sprints to his room. He returns with his beach bag. I bite my tongue before I ask if he dried his towel.

I open the door. “I’ll probably still be reviewing footage when you finish your class. Do you have your key?”

He pats his pocket, comes up empty, and rushes to his room. Again. And he wonders why I don’t think he’s a full-fledged adult yet.

Once Jace has his key and his bag, we make our way to the elevators. Gage is already on the elevator when it opens.

“Hey, man.” Gage greets Jace with a fist pump. “Off to ride the waves?”

“I hope. So far, we’ve only done baby waves.”

Gage shrugs. “You can’t begin as a surfing champion. You have to gradually build up to it.”

Jace nods. “True.”

I bite back my growl. I’ve been telling my son the same thing since he started surfing classes. But he doesn’t listen to me. To my teammate who has no children and has never had a serious relationship before, he listens.

The elevator opens and Jace dashes out. “Bye!”

“Behave!” I holler after him. He waves but doesn’t look back. I grunt.

Gage sighs. “They grow up so fast.”

I scowl at him. “What do you know about it?”

“Not much but I’m learning.”

Learning? Why is he learning about kids? Oh wait. The woman he’s obsessed with has younger siblings she’s helping to raise.

I step closer to him. “Do not get involved with children if you’re going to up and abandon them.”

Pain rips through me at the reminder of how Jace’s mom left him. He’s better off without Serenity. She never paid any attention to him. She didn’t care about how he was doing in school or at sports. She was too busy being selfish for her own child.

But it still hurts him to not have a mom. When Serenity left, she tore us completely out of her life. She doesn’t send birthday cards. Doesn’t call for the holidays. She has no contact with him. She’s no mother.

Gage narrows his eyes on me. “You know me better than that. You know my background and how I feel about family.”

He grew up in care without a family. If anyone knows how it feels to be abandoned, it’s him.

I grunt.

He shakes his head. “I’m interpreting your grunt as an apology. Now, let’s get going. We don’t want to be late.”

I check the time. Shit. The meeting is in seven minutes.

I march toward the meeting room. Gage chases after me. “Slow down. We have seven minutes.”

I ignore him and keep up my pace until we arrive at the room. It’s nearly full. Nolan is sitting up front with Corbin. There’s no sign of Tanner, which isn’t unusual. The goofball is almost always late.

I nod in greeting to Nolan before sitting next to Corbin.

“Where’s Tanner?” Gage asks as if we don’t know Tanner is late all the damn time. It’s irritating as hell. Tanner is irritating as hell. He thinks he’s the life of the party. He doesn’t realize not every damn thing is a party.