Chapter 3
WELCOMED HIM HOME
“Ibet you put on three pounds,” Jayce said at the end of the meal. “That burger was massive.”
“I told you,” she said. “I’m not sure how he does it, but he never sits still.”
Farrah ran her hand over her son’s head, but he dodged out of the way like a typical boy would do when he didn’t want others to see his mother giving affection.
Jayce remembered those days. The embarrassment of a parent showing their love when you wanted to act cool.
Stupid but normal.
“Sounds like your mother when she was a kid,” he said.
“Tell me about Mom,” Archer said. “She makes it sound as if she’s perfect and I don’t think she is. At least she doesn’t look it in the mornings.”
Farrah’s jaw dropped and he held back a laugh. “Has to be like looking in the mirror right now, huh?”
“Don’t tell him those things,” she said.
The Farrah he remembered could crack any crude joke, want to best any boy on the court or the track, and was always out for a good time.
Not loose. Not flirty with boys. Not even catty with girls.
Just an all-around good time and fun person to hang out with.
“What?” Archer said. “Mom gets up and her hair is falling out of her ponytail, she’s wiping her eyes, yawning and putting the coffee on before she gets in the shower.”
“How do you know those things?” she asked. “I have to drag you out of bed every day during the week for school, but on the weekends you get up before me. Doesn’t seem fair.”
“Weekends are for fun,” he said. “That’s why. No one wants to get up if they’ve got to go somewhere they don’t want to be.”
“Ha, Mom,” Archer said.
He smirked at her frown. “I’m going to get ganged up on, I can tell already.”
The server came over and took their plates. Archer’s had been all but licked clean. He still had a few fries on his plate. Farrah had eaten only half her chicken sandwich and fries.
“Do you want a box for that?” the server asked.
“Sure,” she said.
“Does anyone want dessert?” the server asked.
He looked at Archer, the boy’s eyes wide. “Get it if you want.”
“Can I have the chocolate peanut butter cake, please?”
“Anyone else?” the server asked.
“I’m good,” he said.
Farrah shook her head and the server left to place the order after giving her a box for her leftover food.
“Dinner tonight?” he asked when her food went into the container.
“I can bring it for lunch tomorrow.”
“Even the fries?” he asked.
“Yep, food is food, cold or warm.”
“Don’t tell me you eat leftover cold fries,” he said.
“She does,” Archer said. “Mom eats everything cold. Pizza and chicken wings, spaghetti. Blah.”
The kid had his tongue out and was making gagging noises.
“Archer,” she scolded. “That’s not polite at the table. Tone it down.”
“But it’s gross,” Archer argued. “I tell you all the time at home.”
“No more gross than your dirty clothes on the floor,” she said, nudging his arm.
“Mom is a neat freak,” Archer said. “It’s annoying.”
“I might be more like you,” he said, laughing and looking at Archer.
“Don’t encourage him,” she said. “How is your sister doing? Archer, Jayce has a twin sister.”
“You do?” Archer asked. “I wish I had a brother or sister. Someone to hang out with other than Mom.”
“I think your mom is pretty cool,” he said, winking at her. “And Jocelyn is doing well. Gabe just had a baby less than two weeks ago.”
“Gabe did?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows.
“No. His wife, Elise, did. I’ve got myself a nephew. Hunter James.”
“That’s great. What about Jocelyn, is she married or have kids? I never asked about you.”
Her eyes dropped to his left hand again. She’d done it earlier when he’d looked for a ring on hers.
“Jocelyn isn’t married, but she’s in a relationship. I’m single. Never been married either. Kind of hard to have relationships when more than half your life is on the road for longer than half a year.”
Very few would put up with it for long.
Many said they could handle it, but it never worked out.
If they weren’t lonely with him gone, then they were jealous of him being out with other players, thinking he was cheating when he never did.
He never would either.
Which made what happened with Levi even harder for him to accept to get lumped into someone else’s drama.
He should have seen it coming. He could have even ridden it out.
But instead it was time to walk away and swallow the pain that maybe he wasn’t strong enough to balance it all.
“Mom and Dad divorced when I was three,” Archer said.
“How old are you?” he asked. It was hard for him to tell, the kid was so tall.
“I’m eight. How old are you?”
“Archer, you don’t ask that. And Jayce and I went to school together. We are the same age.”
“Thirty-four,” Archer said. “I know that.”
“And you tell everyone,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Not anymore. You told me I couldn’t.”
“What am I missing?” he asked, his eyes moving from one of them to the other. The identical smirks had him grinning.
“When Archer was younger, we’d be out and he’d just chat with anyone. Like he still does. But it was his favorite thing to say my name and how old I am.”
“Why?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Why, Archer?”
He shrugged. “Dad thought it was funny. He liked it when I told everyone my father was a doctor.”
“No,” she said. “We don’t do that. Even if he likes it, I don’t care. It’s rude. It’s like you're bragging and there is no reason for it.”
“Your ex is a doctor?” he asked.
He’d have to check that out. Should be easy enough to find.
“Yes,” she said. “Here is your dessert, Archer. What do you say to Jayce?”
“Thank you for lunch and dessert,” Archer said.
He got the hint that that conversation was over.
“You were gone longer than I thought you’d be,” his mother said when Jayce walked in the door thirty minutes later.
He hated they could keep track of him living here. If he had thought things out more, he could have stayed in Charlotte and rented a place short term, but those last two weeks of work were too stressful and all he wanted to do was escape.
As shocked as his parents were over the change in his life, they welcomed him home with open arms like he knew they would.
“I ran into someone at the park,” he said. “We played hoops and then went to lunch.”
“That’s great. Who was it?”
He was on the fence if he wanted to say, but it didn’t matter all that much. It wasn’t as if he got Farrah’s number or knew where she lived.
They parted ways like casual acquaintances at the park, not like two people who’d just spent hours together. Not like he’d just had the best time he could remember in over a decade with the girl he’d never truly forgotten.
The one who still made his heart race, his palms sweat, and his spine tingle like they were back in high school.
The smile hadn’t left his face the entire time. If he wasn’t laughing at Farrah’s quick wit, it was at Archer’s clever little comments, or the two of them together, their bond as natural as it was entertaining.
Over a decade ago, he never pictured the girl he dated as a mother.
But seeing her now with Archer, he couldn’t imagine her as anything else.
She was damn good at it. It showed in the way Archer listened when she laid down her voice firm, or tested when she let the rope loose.
The easy rhythm of their laughter and the way they teased.
It mirrored the warmth he’d grown up with, the kind he knew would always be there if he returned home. Like he had.
“Farrah Hughes. Lane. Guess it’s Lane now, but she’s divorced. She has an eight-year-old son and we played some hoops like the good old days with Farrah and me, then got some burgers.”
“That’s great,” his mother said. “I’m glad you ran into someone. I always thought she was such a sweet girl. What happened between you two? You remained friends.”
He shrugged. “No clue. Just one of those high school things. We hung out in the same group. You know how it goes. Everyone ends up dating at some point or another, or has a crush. She knew I was leaving and we both wanted to just have fun in college. I think it went the way it should have.”
“That’s normally the way it goes,” his mother said. “Your father and I are going to see the baby if you want to join us? I’ll make a later dinner if you’re good with that.”
“Don’t wait on me,” he said. “Live your lives as if I’m not here. You two go enjoy Hunter. I’ll stop over again later this week.”
His parents left, giving him the house to himself. He had the whole second floor, his old room and bathroom he’d shared with Gabe between them, then the loft he was using as a living room to feel some separation.
He shouldn’t feel like such a loser, but couldn’t help it when he’d found out Farrah had been married to a doctor.
So he could forget any thought that she might want a date with a guy who couldn’t figure out his life in his thirties.
“What are you so worked up about?”
Stacy McCarthy turned to her husband, Jim, in their car on the way to see her grandson.
“Jayce came back and said he spent time with one of his exes from high school at the park and then went to lunch with Farrah and her son.”
“Farrah Lane. Our PA at the doctor’s office?”
“That’s her,” she said. “I didn’t let him know we knew her now. Doesn’t seem as if she did either. He played it off as they had a good time, some burgers, and that was it.”
“It probably was,” he said.
“No, it was more. I saw the look in his eyes when I asked what had happened to them.”
“What did he say?”
“That it was one of those high school things and everyone was friends and dated someone else.”
“And you don’t buy that?” he asked.
“Not really.”
Her husband shook his head. “I think you’re too fixated on trying to fix whatever is wrong with him. He’ll tell us when he’s ready.”
“I hate seeing him like this,” she said. “He’s always been the happy joker of the family. Now he’s just quiet or moody.”
“He’s been moody for a good year,” Jim said.
“But never quiet and he is. I’m not pushing.”
“No matter how much you want to. So take my advice—let him have his space. He’ll come to us when he’s ready. He came home, that’s the first step.”
Her husband was right. But she’d never been one to sit still and the lightness in her son’s eyes when he talked about Farrah just now was something she hadn’t seen in years.
She’d be damned if she was going to wait for it to happen again. Not if she could nudge it along herself. Even if that meant engaging in meddling help from some friends.