Chapter 39 – Knox
thirty-nine
Knox
“Baby!” I shout, walking out of my closet and to the bathroom where she is getting ready. “It’s time to go.”
“I’m ready,” she calls back as she comes out of the bathroom, and my eyes do a sweep of her up and down.
My mouth waters at her outfit, even though it’s just light-blue jeans that fit her tight.
I know they show off her ass to perfection because when I was getting out of the shower before, she walked in wearing them and her bra.
She now has them paired with a long-sleeved black shirt and a short black vest over it.
Her hair is in a ponytail and she’s wearing sneakers on her feet.
“Baby,” I say, grabbing her and immediately cupping her ass with my hands, “you look so sexy.”
“Good.” She looks up at me. “I put a lot of thought and effort into this outfit.” She gives me the once-over. “It’s not every day you come face-to-face with someone who also saw your guy naked.”
I look up at the ceiling. “Kylie.”
“What?” she replies, and I shake my head.
“Are you saying that you would be okay going to an event where you know you’re going to be meeting a guy who had his junk in me.
” My head snaps back down and I glare at her.
“Exactly.” She walks past me. “Also, it’s not fair that you look this hot going to meet your ex,” she tosses over her shoulder.
“Do you have anything that doesn’t show all my favorite parts? ”
All I can do is smirk at her. “What are your favorite parts, baby?” I smirk, knowing at least one of them.
“Oh, stop fishing for compliments.” She walks out of the room.
“That ass though,” I say, following her out, giving her a playful spank, “I’m going to have fun with it tonight.”
“You wish, buddy, you have me for three more days, enjoy it.”
“We really need to revisit that conversation,” I state as we walk out of the house. “Why don’t you sleep over every other night?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “It’s too soon.”
She gets into my SUV and I get in as she’s putting on her seat belt. “Whatever,” I grumble, “but you are over for dinner every night.”
“We’ll see,” she replies as we start the car and head toward the arena for Vincent’s game. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” she finally says. “Like, maybe we should do it another time.”
“Vincent invited you himself,” I remind her of the conversation I had with him last night when he called to ask me if Kylie was coming. I knew he was asking me because he wanted her to come. “You aren’t going to tell him yes and then not show up.”
“You know what, Knox?” She turns to glare at me. “No one likes a know-it-all.”
I reach over and grab her hand, bringing it to my lips. “Baby, relax, it’ll be fine.”
“Baby, relax,” she mimics me, “it’ll be fine.”
I refrain from laughing at her as I make it to the arena. I’m also nervous, but I try not to let her see it. I find a parking spot and get out, meeting her around the back of the car. I slip my hand in hers and she stops me from walking. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
I stop and head to her, holding her face in my hands and kissing her lips softly. “I promise you, it will be fine.”
“I don’t believe you,” she replies, and I slip my hand back in hers and pull her into the rink before she changes her mind. We walk up the four steps and then step in and she looks up at me. “I hate you,” she mumbles as she looks around and we see a skating stimulator at the front.
“Good to know,” I tell her as we walk down the hallway.
I look right and left where the locker rooms are before walking up the stairs to the ice.
When we get to the top, I scan the people around the rink and I’m taking a step forward when I see my father there, holding Nora’s hand.
“Fuck,” I swear, and I don’t know why I tense up, but I do, and she notices it, “my parents are here.”
She doesn’t say anything to me, she just squeezes my hand in hers, probably to give me comfort.
“Daddy,” Nora calls and my father’s head flies to the side, and he smiles when he sees me.
Then his eyes immediately go to my hand that is holding Kylie’s, and I swear if anyone makes her feel uncomfortable, I’m going to blow up.
“Kylie,” Nora chirps, coming to us. She lets go of my hand so I can catch Nora, who gives me a hug.
“Hey, pretty girl.” I kiss her cheek as she wiggles to get out of my arms.
“I’m going to play with Veronica,” she says, getting down and running over to the other side of the area where the arcade is.
“Knox,” my father greets, coming to me and giving me a hug, “it’s good to see you.”
“Dad,” I say his name, “I would like you to meet Kylie.” I put my hand at her lower back and my father gives her a polite, yet tight, smile. “Kylie, this is my father, Greg.”
“It’s very nice to meet you.” Kylie holds out her hand and she gives him a megawatt smile. “I’ve heard so many stories about you, so it’s nice to finally put a face to a name.” I side-eye her because the only story I’ve told her didn’t paint him in the best light.
He doesn’t say anything, instead his eyes go big as he looks behind me.
I look over my shoulder to see my mother walking in with Josephine.
The smile on both their faces fall as they see me and then Kylie beside me.
I slide my hand in hers, this time I’m the one giving her some added comfort, telling her it’s going to be okay.
Westley walks past the two of them and comes straight to me.
“Hey, Dad,” he says, giving me a side hug then doing the same to Kylie.
“I’m going to go and watch warm-up.” He walks past us and heads to the rink where Vincent will be playing.
My mother stops in front of me and gives me an up and down look, the scowl on her face. “Knox,” she says my name.
“Mom,” I nod at her, “nice to see you.” Her eyebrows go up as she looks at Kylie. “Kylie, this is my mother, Elaine.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Kylie says, and she doesn’t extend her hand to her like she did my father.
“I’d say….” my mother starts. “Knox, don’t you think—”
“Not now,” my father snaps at her. “You will not do this now.” He grabs her hand. “We’re going to head in and grab seats,” he tells her and they walk into the arena.
That leaves us with Josephine, who is glaring at Kylie as she looks up at me and smiles, pretending she’s not even fazed that my ex-wife is shooting daggers at her.
“I can’t believe this,” Josephine hisses, no doubt annoyed she is being ignored.
I can see Kylie sort of smirk, and then I turn to face Josephine. “You actually brought her here with your family?”
“Yup,” I confirm, not bothering to say another word, then I look over at Kylie. “Do you want to grab a hot chocolate or something before the game?”
“No, baby,” she replies. I want to laugh because she’s never called me that, but the minute she says it Josephine gasps. Score one for Kylie.
“This is ridiculous,” she hisses, “I don’t want her anywhere near my children.” Her voice is starting to go up, and I can see a couple of the other parents looking our way and trying not to stare.
“I’m not doing this with you.” I look at Josephine. “Not here and not at all.”
I start to turn to walk away, and her hand flies up, gripping my arm to stop me.
It takes me a second to realize what’s happening, it takes Kylie even less.
“You will never,” she seethes, “touch him like that again.” Her voice is low and in control.
“Now, before I rip your hand off of him, you are going to gently let him go.” I grip the back of her jeans pulling her to me, but Josephine lets go of my arm and it falls to her side.
“My lawyer will hear about this,” she hisses.
“Really?” Kylie retorts. “That’s all you’ve got?
” She shakes her head. “You don’t think you’ve put him through enough?
” she asks her as the two of them almost go toe to toe, but Kylie is smiling the whole time while Josephine scowls.
“You ruined his whole life and instead of being sorry for it, you’re just being vindictive.
” She shakes her head. “And I’m not going to stand around and listen to you shit all over him.
Not on my watch.” I put my hand on her hip.
“So you can call your lawyer and spin whatever tale you want to. He’s a great dad and you can’t even deny it.
” She points over my shoulder. “I’m not going to let it bother me, and more importantly, I’m not going to let it bother him.
So from now on, if I’m around and I hear you spew your bullshit, I’ll get in your face about it because he won’t, but I will.
You want to air your dirty laundry,” Kylie shrugs, “let’s go, because I can guess you probably have a lot more than he does.
” Josephine just glares at her, not saying a word, and all I can do is smile as I pull Kylie closer to my front.
“Now, it was nice to meet you,” she adds, looking around.
“You have three amazing children,” she smiles, “and I look forward to getting to know them more.”
Josephine folds her arms over her chest. “We’ll see about that.”
“I guess we will,” Kylie replies then turns to me, putting her hands on my chest. “We should get seats.” I look down and all I can do is smile at her.
She was so nervous coming here and so worried about how it would go, and then she just went toe to toe with my ex because she was going to shit on me and Kylie refused to let it happen.
She could have caused a huge scene, but instead she was calm, cool, and collected.
Not only did she protect me, she also protected my children and what they might have heard through gossip.
“If you want, we can save you a seat,” she tells Josephine, and this time she says it loud enough that people can hear her, so it sounds like the three of us are having a mature conversation.
“No, we’re not.” I shake my head. “Absolutely not. I’m not sitting with her,” I finally say softly. “Let’s go before you invite her over for Sunday lunch.” Only when we are a couple of steps away does she lean in.
“They say keep your friends close but your enemies closer.” I pull open the door to the rink. “So I was keeping her closer.”
“I don’t give a shit what whoever says. It’s not going to happen; I’m not having that woman come in our house.” Her eyebrows go up.
“Our house?” she repeats the words.
I roll my eyes and shrug my shoulders. “Whatever, you lived there all week.”
She walks in, stopping inside and waiting for me to step into the rink. She doesn’t move from beside me, making me decide where we are going to sit. I see my parents sitting at the side together with Westley in front of them. “What do you want to do?” she asks me.
“I want to sit down with my son with my woman beside me,” I state, walking down the steps and sitting in the same row as Westley.
“Did they do the warm-up skate?” I ask as I sit down next to Westley and pull Kylie down with me. She crosses her legs, and I drape my arm around them as she snuggles up beside me. “It’s freezing,” she says. “Next time I’ve got to wear one of your sweaters.”
I look at her from the side. “You’d wear my shirt?” I wink at her and she puts her face in my shoulder. I can feel eyes on us, and I know four of them are right behind me but I couldn’t care less.
“I’d wear your shirt,” she confirms and then moves away from me. “So who is going to win?” She leans over me and talks to Westley.
“We better win,” Westley answers, “but the other team is in first place.”
When Vincent comes out, Kylie points to him.
When he looks at us, she waves her hand and smiles at him.
The game ends with Vincent scoring the tie-breaking goal.
When I stand up, she stands up with me and I smile down at her.
“This was better than your game,” she teases me as I look at my father, who is just watching us.
We make our way out and head down toward the locker room, where all the parents are waiting for their kids to come out. “So what happens now?” Kylie asks me as we stop near the entrance.
“Now we wait for Vincent to come out. I tell him good game, say goodbye, and then I get to take you home and do dirty things to you.” She pushes my shoulder as she laughs, something she did all night long.
She knew she was getting glares from my mother and Josephine, and she just pretended like she didn’t even notice.
I grab her hand, holding it to my chest as I bend my head to kiss her softly. “Thank you for tonight.”
“You owe me,” she mumbles, “and I’m going to collect.” She steps closer to me and I lean back on the wall and wrap my arm around her neck. “Prepare to pay, Mr.—” She’s about to say something else when we see Vincent come out and go first to my dad and then come to me.
“Hey,” I say, letting go of Kylie and bending to kiss his sweaty head, “you played amazing.”
“What is that smell?” Kylie says, putting her hand over her mouth and nose making Vincent laugh. “Is that you?”
Vincent just laughs. “That’s called hockey sweat.”
“Eww.” She shakes her head, and it makes him laugh even more.
She lets go of her nose to give him a hug and holds her breath, making him laugh even more, which annoys Josephine. “We have to go,” Josephine says and the kids come to say goodbye to me and then to Kylie.
I slip my hand in hers as we walk out with them, and my father holds up his hand to say goodbye to us from afar and then looks at Kylie. “It was nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” she replies, “both of you.” I shake my head as my mother storms to their car.
“I’ll call you this week,” my father tells me, and I almost roll my eyes at him.
When we get into the car, I look at her. “That wasn’t as bad as you thought it was going to be, was it?”
The smile she had on her face the whole night is now gone as she glares at me.
“Are you kidding me? I feel like I went to battle.” She puts her head back.
“Do you know how much energy it takes to pretend I’m a nice person?
” Her eyes close as she breathes deeply.
“I hope you know that you are going to have to do all the work tonight.” I snort.
“I’m not kidding,” she snaps. “I’m not lifting a finger. ”
“Okay, baby,” I say softly and rub my hand up and down her leg, “I’ll do all the work.” My hand goes between her legs and she opens them for me. “All you have to do is lie there.”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” she confirms when I rub down the seam of her jeans. “Now take me home.”
“Your wish,” I say, pulling out of the parking lot, “is my command.”