Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
I glanced over at my twelve-year-old daughter while her knee bounced wildly as we drove through the busy Seattle streets toward the pool. Her reflection in the window—since it was already dark out—showed a scrunched brow and small frown.
Reaching over, I rested my hand on her thigh. “You okay?”
Kira pivoted to face me. “What if I suck?”
“At swimming?” I exclaimed. “You?” Then I gave her a ‘you’ve gotta do better than that’ look. “What’s really eating you, kiddo? You’re a champion swimmer. You’re not going to suck.”
“Okay, but what if I’m too good and all the other kids hate me because I’m the new kid who joins halfway through the season and shows them all up?”
“Still not buying it that’s what’s eating you. Try again.”
She let out a long, dramatic sigh. “I just hate that we had to move halfway through the year. The school year and the swimming year. Why couldn’t we wait until June?”
Nodding, I took a left on the advanced green light and pulled into the parking lot for the rec center. “Neither your dad nor I could afford to buy the other person out of the house. He moved to LA, and … I—we—moved back here to be closer to family.”
She scoffed. “Yeah, and that entire family decided to take a vacation to Mexico for Christmas, leaving us all on our own. Great family you’ve got there, Mom.
” She ran her tongue over the braces that covered her front teeth.
She’d only had them for a couple of months and was still getting used to them.
She also wasn’t wrong about my family. It was a big kick in the teeth when I told my parents, brother, and sister-in-law that Kira and I were moving back to Seattle.
Only for them to one week later tell me about their family vacation in Mexico.
And no, they didn’t invite Kira and I. My divorce cost me an arm and a leg, not to mention my recent townhouse purchase and the ridiculous Seattle real estate market, so I couldn’t just drop a few grand on a trip to Cancun.
Releasing a sigh of my own, I frowned and squeezed her thigh. “We’ll make this Christmas really special, just the two of us. I promise.”
“Dad hasn’t returned my texts.”
“Is that what’s really bugging you?”
“Everything’s bugging me.”
Been there.
Kira didn’t have her period yet, but she was due for it any day.
I was twelve and a half when I first got mine, and I made sure she always had pads, period panties and extra pants in her school and swim bag just in case I wasn’t there when she got it.
We had discussed tampons at length too, because if she planned on sticking with swimming, she would need to use them.
I found a parking spot and put my Toyota RAV into park. “Bundle up, sugarplum, it’s frosty out there.”
Rolling her eyes, but not objecting, my temperamental teenager-to-be reached into the backseat for her sky-blue down-filled winter jacket and shrugged into it. I did the same.
“Ready?” I asked after we were both zipped up.
“No. But I need to go in anyway,” she said sullenly.
“Good enough.”
We both opened our doors, and she reached into the backseat for her swim bag, then we high-tailed to the front door, wrestling with the sleet and wind that threatened to freeze off our faces.
My cheeks stung from the icy pellets as we emerged into the warm rec center lobby. “I’ll meet you out there,” I said, taking the door that led to the pool while she needed to go to the change room first.
All I got in reply was a grunt and another eye roll.
My heart ached for my kid.
Her entire world was just flipped on its axis.
This time last year, Kira had a perfectly wonderful life. Her parents were married and seemingly happy. She had a lot of friends, and just won her tenth gold medal of her swimming “career” at the swim meet. She was living the preteen dream.
Then, around Easter, Damien, Kira’s father, unveiled that he’d been having an affair with his student—his male student—and was leaving me for Paul.
I had no problem with the LGBTQAI2+ community, but I did have a problem with the fact that rather than come to me with his crisis of sexual orientation before he cheated, Damien dropped the mother of all bombs on me—on my birthday.
Not only that, but he’d been sleeping with Paul for nearly six months—and sleeping with me.
And anytime during our divorce proceedings when I brought up his infidelity and dishonesty, he would call me a homophobe.
That wasn’t the issue at all. I would have been just as mad if he’d cheated on me with a woman.
What gutted me the most, though, was how he made it all about him. He didn’t think that Kira had any reason to be mad at him. He figured she needed to celebrate that after thirty-six years, he was finally living his truth.
So of course, when the judge asked Kira who she wanted to live with, she said, me. Damien didn’t even fight for custody. He did, however, fight over how much child support he figured he should pay. The judge hated him by the end and gave me everything I asked for.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t up to my eyeballs in lawyer fees, though. Damien fought with all his might when I tried to get him to cover my lawyer fees—and he won that battle.
I found a seat on the bleachers and pulled out my phone, bringing up the contact name: Fuckwad McShitstain AKA Damien Robinson. His avatar was also a squid, because squids were dicks.
Your daughter has texted you, and you’ve ignored her.
No pleasantries, because fuck pleasantries. He didn’t deserve them after what he did to us. Straight to the point, and that was it.
Three little dots appeared, bouncing on the screen. Taunting me.
Then they disappeared.
I growled.
Then they reappeared.
Then they disappeared again.
Then nothing.
Motherfucker.
He chose Paul over his own daughter. Paul, his student, who got accepted to UCLA for his PhD, so Damien just followed. He gave up his tenure at the college he worked at in Eugene, and moved into the private sector, becoming a consultant rather than a professor—which had always been his dream.
We met during my sophomore year of college and Damien’s senior year.
I was pregnant with Kira by the end of my junior year and had to quit with just a semester of school to go to complete my bachelor’s.
Damien, however, went on to get his masters, and PhD while I stayed home with Kira.
I eventually finished my last semester, but the hope of going on to get a master’s in computer science myself was a pipe dream.
So I took more coding classes online and eventually became a freelance website developer.
I was able to work while Kira napped, then eventually when she went to preschool and school, and after she went to bed in the evenings.
It was impossible to live in the Pacific Northwest on one income, so I needed to figure out a way to bring money into our family somehow.
No matter what, though, it’d always been about Damien.
About his career. About his schooling. He had ample opportunity to take a sabbatical for a semester and spend time with his daughter, but he never did.
He was in the tenure rat-race. He treated my career like a joke, saying that anybody could create a website now with companies like WordPress and Wix out there. Who needed the likes of me anymore?
Well, given that I was currently turning away clients and turning down projects daily, apparently a lot of people needed the likes of me.
What I couldn’t understand, however, was who needed the likes of him.
He was a fucking medieval literature professor.
His work was derivative. It wasn’t uncovering anything new.
It wasn’t changing the landscape of society, science, technology or anything.
It was literally unpacking and dissecting work that had already been done and proving you were a fucking expert at understanding it.
The only option for a useless degree like that was becoming a professor.
And yet, he thought he was contributing to the culture of the world and preserving important works. If he and others didn’t study this historic shit, eventually it would be lost and gone forever.
Rage still burned like a thousand fires in my belly at how selfish my husband turned out to be. Thirteen years of marriage down the drain. All of it—a lie.
The only good thing to come out of that was Kira.
And right now, my poor child hated the world, and there was only so much I could do for her.
“Mrs. Robinson?” came a deep, yet also vaguely familiar voice, pulling me out of my rage fog and my eyes away from my phone.
I was still staring at my unanswered text message to Damien, silently hoping the man had lost all of his fingers in a horrific logging accident.
Not that he logged, but one could dream.
I lifted my head to find a god-like creature staring at me, wearing an enormous smile. A smile of familiarity, like he knew me. I narrowed my gaze, trying to place him. I’d never met anybody in my life this handsome. Clearly, he was a figment of my imagination.
He must have picked up on my not recognizing him, and grinned even wider. “Picture me without the facial hair and about six inches shorter.”
I did my best, and holy shit! My mouth dropped open. “Deacon!”
That made him laugh, and his laugh made my panties damp. Before I knew it, I was being hauled to a standing and wrapped up in a big hug.
Holy mama, he smelled good. He was also hard as a freaking rock. Did this kid have even an ounce of body fat? He could certainly have some of mine. I had body fat to spare.
He let go of me, his green eyes glittering under the horrific fluorescent lights above. “I thought that was you. What are you doing here?” He glanced around. “Is Kira here swimming?”
Still a little flustered, I swallowed and told my belly to tame those butterflies. This man could not be older than twenty-two. He was barely a man.
And yet, he looked all man.
“I uh … she is!” Why was I yelling?
His easygoing smile did absolutely nothing to calm me.
“W-we’ve moved back to Seattle. She’s rejoined the swim league here, and today is her first day.”
His smile was absolutely infectious, and before I knew it, my cheeks were in pain because I was trying to match his grin. “That’s amazing,” he said.
“A-are you still coaching?” I asked. I was stammering as if I had a stutter. Dear god, what must he think of me?
“I am,” he said. “It’s one of my many jobs, actually. I coach, I lifeguard, I teach guitar, I work part time at the lab. Anything to pay for school, right?”
“You’re in school?”
The kids filed out of the change rooms, gathering behind him. Other coaches and parents joined the mix as well, but it was impossible not to feel the other moms watching our conversation with keen interest.
“I am. Getting my master’s in biology with a focus on earth and ocean science. So I work a few days a week in the lab with my professor.”
The word professor was clearly a trigger for me because my pulse immediately picked up and bile coated the back of my tongue.
Deacon is not Paul. Deacon is not Damien. Deacon is not YOURS!
“Mom?” Kira approached, her cheeks instantly going bright pink when she took in the redwood that was Deacon George.
Deacon smiled warmly at her. “Do you remember me, Kira?”
She shook her head. “This is Coach Deacon,” I said. “He coached you for a couple of years before we moved.”
All she did was nod, then turn back to me. “Can you braid my hair, please?”
I was relieved to be given a task; otherwise, I would have just stared inappropriately at the coach.
Nodding, I accepted the hair elastic she gave me and gathered her long, dark curly hair—the exact same as mine—into three strands and effortlessly put it into a tight French braid.
“There,” I said, tossing the fastened end over her left shoulder.
“Thanks,” she murmured. “Can you help me with my cap, please?”
I accepted the chartreuse-green swim cap from her and held it open so she could duck her head and hold it at her forehead. Then, with one hard yank over her head, I tugged it to the nape of her neck.
We’d probably done this nearly a thousand times, so we had a system that worked.
“Thanks,” she murmured, swiping her tongue over her braces again.
“All right, guys, let’s go over our drills for the warm-up today,” Deacon announced before flashing me one more smile, and, fucking hell, a wink.
“We’ve also got a new swimmer here with us today.
I’d like everybody to welcome Kira Robinson to the team.
I promise, Kira, we’re all really nice and supportive. I’m sure you’ll fit right in.”
Kira glanced back at me, chewing on her bottom lip.
I gave her an encouraging thumbs up, but that was only met with another eye roll.
“How old’s your daughter?” asked the blonde woman beside me. Her smile was friendly, and from what I could tell, she didn’t have any judgement in her tone or hazel eyes.
“Twelve and a half going on twenty,” I said with a sigh. “I’m sure I put my own mother through the wringer when I was that age, but yeesh, the pre-teen angst and hormones are … they’re a lot.”
The woman nodded. “I hear that. My son is thirteen and a stinky, moody monster. I’m Jeanie.” She held out her hand, and I shook it.
“Greta. Nice to meet you. Which one is yours?”
She pointed to the cute little redhead girl in the royal blue suit and matching goggles.
“Maria. She’s ten. My son Holden isn’t into swimming.
He’s at lacrosse practice over at the field across the parking lot.
” She pointed west to indicate the field that was part of the enormous sports and recreation complex.
“I feel you on the angst and hormones. My husband and I just separated, and both kids are acting out more than ever. So much fighting.”
Relief swamped me. “I’m going through the same thing. Kira’s dad and I just split, and he moved to California to be with his new boyfriend.”
Jeanie’s eyes nearly met her hairline. “Shit. That sucks. I’m really sorry.”
“Thanks. Yeah. So navigating that, moving back to Seattle from Eugene, Oregon, and just her age and all the trials and tribulations that come with that have been a lot.”
“We should get wine one night. Or, hell, bring a flask to the next practice. I feel like we are destined to commiserate and throw darts at our ex’s faces together.” Jeanie’s smile was the exact balm I needed for the rash Damien left around my heart.
Grinning, I nodded. “Sounds like a perfect way to spend an evening. But when you say throw darts at our ex’s faces, you mean pictures of them, right?”
Jeanie laughed. “Unless you have yours tied up in your basement like I do mine?”