Sneak Peak #2
My kid doesn't do that. He doesn't reach for people he doesn't know. He barely tolerates Nolan, and Nolan has been in his life since before the divorce. Milo is careful. He learned careful the same way I did. By watching what happens when you're not.
But he takes the juice box from Vera Lane like he's known her for years.
She helps him get the straw in. Doesn't make a production of it. Doesn't coo at him or talk to him like he's younger than he is. She just does the small useful thing and then stays still, letting him set the terms.
I watch her do it. I don't say anything. There is nothing to say.
***
"Better?" she asks him.
Milo takes a long pull of apple juice. Considers. "Yeah."
"Good." She glances up at me then. Quick. Assessing. I don't know what she sees but she doesn't look away first.
I do.
"He hates loud noises," I say. It comes out rougher than I mean it to. "The puck hit right above where he was standing."
"I know. I was there."
"Right."
She doesn't fill the silence with reassurance. Doesn't tell me it's fine or that kids bounce back or any of the other things people say when they don't know what else to do. She just sits on her heels next to my kid and lets the moment be what it is.
There's nothing to do with that.
***
Milo finishes the juice box and leans back into me, heavy and boneless the way kids get when they've finally let go of the tension. His eyes are drooping. We've got maybe four minutes before he's out.
I start the thing I always do. Low, stupid, reliable.
A made-up story about a hockey player who can only score goals when his lucky sock is on the wrong foot.
It's not a good story. It doesn't need to be.
It just needs to be my voice in his ear, steady and boring, until his breathing slows all the way down.
Vera sits back against the wall. Quiet. She doesn't leave.
I notice. People usually leave. Not in a dramatic way. They just find somewhere else to be when things get inconvenient. When Milo has a hard moment in public, the team staff suddenly needs to check something in the hallway. Nolan answers a call. The arena handlers drift.
She's still here, back against the wall, knees pulled up, watching my kid fall asleep against my chest like this is the most ordinary thing in the world.
Milo's breathing evens out. I adjust my hold.
Then I hear it.
The click.
Shutter. Camera. Doorway.
My head snaps up.
A photographer pulls back from the door frame. Arena credential, long lens. He got what he came for. I can see it in the way he moves: too fast, too deliberate.
Vera heard it too. She's on her feet before I've finished processing.
She reaches over to steer the photographer back. Her hand lands on Milo's shoulder as she leans in, steadying herself. Pure reflex.
My hand lands on top of hers.
Also reflex.
Neither of us moves for a second.
She's warm. That's the only coherent thing my brain produces. Warm, and close, and looking at me like she's just realized the same thing I have. This image, right now, is going to be everywhere before Milo wakes up from his nap.
***
My phone buzzes.
Nolan.
I already know before I open it.
The image loads and everything in me locks. It's exactly as bad as I thought. Exactly as good, if you're standing on Nolan's side of the equation.
Me on the floor with my kid. Vera's hand on Milo's shoulder. My hand on hers. Her face turned just enough toward the camera that you can see she's not performing. She's just there, present and real, in a moment that was supposed to be private.
Already trending.
Three seconds, then another text.
We can use this.
I stare at those four words long enough that they stop looking like words.
Vera is reading over my shoulder. I didn't invite her to, but I don't move away either. Partly because Milo is still asleep against me. Partly because I want to see her face when she reads it.
She stops.
Then she looks at Nolan's name at the top of the thread, and then at the image, and then at me.
She is furious.
Not loud about it. She doesn't make a sound. But her mouth is pressed flat and her eyes are doing something I recognize because I see it in the mirror. Controlled anger, the kind you practice containing until it's the only kind you have.
"Your agent," she says.
"Yes."
"He already has the photo."
"Apparently."
She straightens up. She looks at Milo, who is dead asleep and oblivious to all of it. Nolan's texts. The photographer's shutter. Two adults standing over him with completely different reasons to be unhappy about the same picture.
Her voice drops. "This wasn't staged."
"No."
"So he just—" She stops. Pulls back whatever she was about to say. Lifts her chin slightly instead. "You're going to respond to that text."
It's not a question.
"I haven't decided."
She looks at me for a moment. Really looks. The same way Milo did when he was deciding whether to take the juice box. Like she's running some kind of internal calculation and I'm the variable she's least sure about.
"When you do," she says, "make sure Milo is asleep first."
She picks up her clipboard from where it landed on the floor. I didn't even notice her drop it. She walks to the door.
She pauses with her hand on the frame. Doesn't turn around.
"He's a good kid," she says.
And then she's gone.
***
I sit on the floor of the empty lounge with my son asleep in my arms and Nolan's text open on my phone and the fading warmth of her hand somewhere in my chest.
We can use this.
I look at Milo's face. Slack and peaceful, the lines of the rough hour smoothed out in sleep, his small hand still curled in the front of my jersey.
I think about what using this would mean.
A photo. A narrative. A woman the internet has already decided is soft and good and real, standing next to a man the internet has already decided is dangerous and calculating and hollow.
I think about her hand under mine and the fact that I didn't let go.
I type back: Don't post anything. I'll call you tomorrow.
Nolan responds immediately with three question marks and an emoji I don't bother reading.
I put the phone face-down on the floor and go back to watching Milo sleep.
Tomorrow is going to be a problem.
I'm almost looking forward to it.