Chapter 30 Emma
THIRTY
EMMA
MARCH
The last few seconds ticked out on the game clock, and the boys headed for the locker room.
“I think we’re gonna take off, Em,” Jeff said, holding his sleeping daughter against his chest.
“Yeah, go get that little one in bed.”
Harlan appeared antsy at my side. “Or, um, we could all go out to celebrate. Take Liam and his friends out?”
Jeff’s wife leaned in. “I can take our kids home. It’s past bedtime. They’d be monsters at a restaurant.”
“I can help,” Jeff offered.
She shooed him off. “Go be with Liam.”
Harlan looked at me uncertainly. “I don’t want to overstep.”
“No.” I shook my head. “He’ll love it if we go out. I think you made his night by coming.”
“I didn’t want to be a distraction,” he said.
I laced my fingers with his. “You’re not. It means a lot to me that you’re here even though you don’t want kids or anything.”
Harlan turned to face me. “I don’t really see this like that. I’m in his fan club. I’m proud of him, and if he wants me here to support him, I’m here. It’s nice to see a kid with a good family.”
A warm, heavy feeling settled inside me.
Those deep blue eyes, the hand in mine, the way he teased and supported me, all of those things were making Harlan become part of my family.
Not fully, but little by little. He was there to help out when shit went wrong.
He was there to celebrate our victories.
And I wanted to be there to celebrate more of his.
Harlan stopped by the bathroom, and I went outside to meet up with Jeff.
He walked my way from his minivan, blowing a kiss to his wife as she drove off.
“So proud of our boy,” Jeff said, extending his arms to hug me.
I gave him a good squeeze before stepping back. “Can’t believe he’s almost done with high school.”
Jeff smiled. “You did good with him, Em.”
“We did good,” I corrected him.
“Nah, we both know he’s your boy.”
“He is the forever motherboy,” I laughed, drumming up the term we used for him when he was so attached to me as an infant. “But that doesn’t mean you weren’t there. A lot of guys don’t stick around, but you did. I think I had an easier single parent journey than a lot of people do.”
Jeff flattened his lips. “I can’t imagine it any other way. You’re a great mom, and he’s a great kid. Walking away from that is unfathomable.”
“Which is why it wasn’t so crazy to think of having a kid with you when we were twenty. I had a good feeling about you.”
Jeff chuckled, then looked pensive. “I like Royce.”
I put a hand to my chest in mock shock. “You, approving of someone? Are there snowballs in hell?”
“He cares about you. Sticks up for you.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Sticks up for me?”
Jeff sighed. “Fuckin’ Dave said something rude and Harlan handed him his ass. And he was funny about it too, to the point that I wasn’t sure if Dave even knew he was getting taken for a ride.”
I tipped my head from side to side. “Yep, that’s him.”
“So, that, and I like that he’s nice to Liam. Not just nice, but . . . he’s on his team.” Jeff tweaked my cheek. “And he makes you happy. I approve.”
I swatted his hand away. “I wasn’t looking for your approval, but thank you.”
“Is work okay with you two being together?”
A pit sank in my stomach. We were still playing the “secret for now” game, but that time seemed to be coming to a close. “We haven’t crossed that bridge yet.”
Jeff scoffed. “You better. Thirty people took pictures of you two together tonight. And there were all those comments on that video of you two.”
I waved a hand. “It’s just the internet. They want a rock to get together with a tree if it looks at it just right.”
“Well, you two tend to look at each other just right. People know.”
I shrugged and put up finger quotes. “He was mentoring the team.”
Jeff cocked his head at me. “Emma. Come on. I’m sure someone caught the kissing or the grabassing or the handholding.”
Rather than being embarrassed for being called out, a chill raced over my skin. Why was it that every little drop of affection from Harlan felt thrilling? Irresistible? Why did I feel like a giggling schoolgirl because I got a little sneaky PDA from Harlan Royce of all people?
So much had changed in a span of a few months, but I felt like a flower emerging in spring. I didn’t know I was still alive until the sun shone and the water rained down on me and the bees tended to me.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said. “I appreciate the concern, though.”
Dinner was winding down. Harlan ended up inviting the rest of the seniors and their families to come along.
I leaned into his ear. “You don’t have to foot the bill for all these people, you know.”
He shrugged. “No kids of my own. Might as well spoil someone’s kids.”
I rubbed my lips together, my hand dropping to cover his on my knee. “You’re really sure you don’t want any?”
“Pfft. Got the vasectomy scar to prove it.”
I eyed him. “Guess I’ll have to look harder next time I’m down there. I’m not sure I believe you.”
“Who would lie about that?”
I snorted. "I don't know. Guys who get off on spreading their seed everywhere."
Harlan made a gagging motion. "That's . . . quite the term."
"Blame Mara. She's the one who forced us to read some massive romantasy."
Harlan still looked disgusted. “You like that stuff too?"
I dropped my jaw. "Harlan Royce, are you judging my literary tastes?"
He hesitated. "No."
“You are."
"I just don't want to be compared to some bottle genie with a four-foot cock and a tickler suction cup."
"I never would have guessed," I gasped. "Harlan Royce has fragile masculinity. The man who was once the peak of big dick energy is in fact a huge weenie."
"Am not," he huffed.
"You are threatened by fae lords."
He pouted. "I had a girl tell me my dick was small one time."
I choked on my drink. "She what?"
"Yeah."
“So, what, to prove it’s not small, you got as many dick piercings as possible?”
He tipped his head to the side. “Never occurred to me. I don’t think it’s really like that.”
I chuckled. “I think it’s exactly like that, but I love you the way you are.”
Harlan’s eyes were wide, his eyebrows somewhere in the middle of his forehead. “You what?”
I fumbled over my words. “Not like that. It’s not like that.”
He smirked and slung an arm around my shoulder, kissing my temple and murmuring in my ear. “I think it’s exactly like that, actually.”
I growled and turned my face up to the ceiling. Harlan, for once in his life, gave me some mercy and moved on. “So, Jeff doesn’t hate me anymore. That’s nice.”
My face softened. “No, I don’t think he hates you at all. Believe it or not, he told me he approves.”
Harlan chewed his lip, looking out at the boys goofing off at the table and Jeff laughing with another dad. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you guys get along so well. Why did you split up?”
This was another thing that was often a dealbreaker with men: feeling threatened by Jeff and my relationship with him.
“He’s still my best friend. We just weren’t in love with each other anymore.
I’ll always love him, but the spark was gone.
We tried to save it for a few years, thinking maybe it was just the stress of being adults and having a young kid.
But as Liam got older, we wanted different things.
We loved each other enough to acknowledge that we couldn’t give each other what we wanted.
He wanted more kids, and I wanted just Liam and more time with my career.
Divorce is tough, but we figured Liam would be more well-adjusted if he saw us happy in our own right and respecting each other for it.
” I paused. “You know, when you break up with someone, there’s this person floating out there in the world who knows almost everything about you.
They know the little stuff like how you take your coffee and which side you like to sleep on, but they also know your deepest fears and doubts.
I’ve broken up with plenty of men I never wanted to speak to again, but I think what makes Jeff and I good friends is that we didn’t want to let that connection go. ”
“That’s really sweet. Thoughtful. Mature.” Harlan turned to look at me head on. “I don’t know everything he knows about you, but I’m learning.”
I wanted to kiss him so badly at that moment, but I squeezed his hand in my lap. “I’m learning you too.”