“Penny for your thoughts?” I said to him.
He turned toward me, crinkling his face in confusion. “Huh?”
“Penny for your thoughts,” I repeated. “It means I’ll give you a penny if you tell me what you’re thinking about.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Andy lift his chin, looking at Logan in his rearview mirror.
“I don’t know.” Logan shrugged. “I’m not really thinking about anything. I’m just . . . happy.” He turned back to the window and rested his chin on his fist, a content smile on his lips.
We cooked supersized salads for dinner with all of our yummy farmers’ market finds. After we finished eating, I told Andy I’d clean the kitchen while he ran the kids through the shower and put them in bed. The dishwasher was running, the counters were clear, and I’d swept the corners of the floor, but Andy was still upstairs with the kids. I decided that I wanted to get more comfortable, so I crept down the hall to my room and put on cozy sweats and an oversize T-shirt. When I came back into the kitchen, Becca was sitting at the island, waiting for me.
“What’s up, kiddo?”
“I wanted to say good night to you.” She held her arms out straight for a hug.
I walked over and picked her up off the stool, squeezing tight. “I had fun with you today.”
“Mm-hmm,” she murmured in a soft, sleepy tone against my shoulder.
“Did you have fun?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Are you falling asleep?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Falling?” Andy whispered loudly, laughing as he came into the room. “She’s gone.”
“That was fast.” I rocked her back and forth, taking a deep breath of her hair. She smelled like oranges and vanilla, and I made a mental note to sneak upstairs tomorrow and see what kind of shampoo she used.
“Once she’s done, she’s done. She’ll fall asleep anywhere, so you have to get her into bed the instant she starts complaining about being tired.” He laughed again, walking over and switching her into his arms so he could carry her back upstairs and put her in bed. I watched Andy walk away, his strong arms and broad shoulders carrying his sweet baby girl. He leaned down and kissed the side of her head just as he rounded the bottom of the staircase. No guy had ever given me butterflies the way he did.
I was curled up on the couch with the remote in my hand when he came back down a couple of minutes later.
“All right, I’m a grown man,” he announced as he walked over to the couch and sat down next to me. “Mature enough to pay up on a bet when I lose. What are we watching?”
My head fell back against the couch, and I rolled my eyes, turning my face toward him. “Confession time. I hate chick flicks. They bore the hell out of me. I’d much rather watch SportsCenter and see how my athletes did today.”
“Seriously?” His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Score!”
We were quiet for a little while, both staring at the TV as they did the top ten plays of the day. None of my athletes did anything spectacular, but one of Andy’s baseball players hit two home runs. He fist-pumped the air as we watched the replay. After the show was over and they went to commercial, I clicked the button on the remote to look at the guide.
“I’m sorry about Becca,” Andy said suddenly.
My eyes shifted over to him. “Becca? Where did that come from?”
He shrugged and lifted his feet onto the coffee table, crossing them at the ankles. “She’s been all over you since you got here, and I feel bad. I’m sure you weren’t expecting that.”
I shrugged. “Andy, I wasn’t expecting any of this. A week ago, I was sitting on the couch in my own house watching SportsCenter with Roxy on my lap. Now I’m here. Everything has happened so damn fast, and I’m just thankful that you’ve been there for me. Besides, I needed a new sidekick. Becca’s great. I love hanging out with her.”
He nodded as his eyes dropped to his lap. Something else was definitely on his mind. “Now that you’re here, I can definitely see how much she misses having a mom.”
A little twinge pulled in my stomach at the mention of the m-word, but I didn’t want to talk about me right then.
“Okay.” I pulled my knee up onto the couch and turned to face him. “You opened the door, so I’m going in. What’s up with her? And you? I’m not gonna lie, it’s a weird situation.”
“It’s very weird. And overwhelming at times.”
“What happened? Like . . . why did you divorce?”
He let out a heavy sigh. “It’s a long story, but I’ll give you the condensed version. When Brody started dating his now wife, Kacie, Blaire was mean to her for absolutely no reason. And I mean . . . cruel. She almost broke them up, just for sport. Anyway, we had a talk, and she swore she’d stop meddling in people’s lives, but she didn’t. If anything she got worse, and after I found out everything that went down and the dust settled, I started to take a long, hard look at our marriage and how she’d been all those years. She was never a nice person, but I did my best to keep the kids and myself out of her way and just tolerated it. I decided that was no way to live, so I pulled the plug. That was it.”