Matt had Evan’s shirt in his fists and his friend shoved up hard against a tree before anyone could stop him. “I’m. Not. Scared.”
Evan didn’t look away, didn’t even try to struggle out of his grip. He simply stared Matt down. “Prove it.”
As if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head, Matt dropped his hold on Evan’s shirt. Because he knew what his friend meant. He didn’t have to prove his courage to the Mavericks.
He needed to prove it to Ari.
To Noah.
And, most of all, to himself.
For so long—way too long—he’d let his fears for Noah overshadow everything, even his common sense, so that he heard his father’s voice in his own.
He’d seen only the worst and missed everything that was good.
Ari would never have let Noah reach the street. She’d stopped him, in fact. She had done everything in her power to protect him as well as Matt could himself.
Because she loved Noah.
And once upon a time, she’d loved Matt too.
His gaze on his son in the pool, he told his friends the complete truth. “She’s the best thing that ever walked into my life. Noah loves her.” Turning back to them all, he said what they already knew. Any fool could see it a mile away. “And I do too. I love her so much.”
“Then what the hell are you waiting for?” Will asked.
“We’ll take care of Noah.” Harper leaned into Will as she said it.
Matt wanted the same kind of love she and Will shared, the love that had chased away all his friend’s demons and set him free of the past. He craved the same kind of emotions that shone in Charlie’s eyes when she looked at Sebastian, the adoration that overcame Sebastian when he held her hand.
Ari had given him all that. But he’d thrown it away because he was afraid that when push came to shove, he couldn’t be there for her, that he’d let her down. When it turned out that the only surefire way he’d let her down was not telling her he loved her with every cell, every nerve, every muscle and organ in his body.
It was the only time in his life that he was truly the idiot his father had called him.
He and Ari could work out the rest of it—the water wings, the training wheels, the fact that she’d come to him as his nanny and had quickly become so much more.
If she was willing to give him another chance.
Moving to the edge of the pool, he hunkered down by the shallow end. “Hey, buddy.” He touched the water wings. “Next time we swim at home, we’re going to try it with the water wings off, okay?”
Noah’s eyes went wide. “For real?”
“For real. But right now I’ve got to leave the party for a while.”
Noah stopped, his wings bobbing on the surface as he trod water, keeping himself up all on his own. “Where are you going, Daddy?”
“To bring Ari back.”
Chapter Thirty
Sitting on the love seat in the window of her small apartment, Ari stared at the only place that was really hers. The Murphy bed was in its wall pocket, and used paperback books she’d bought at library sales lined the shelves on either side of it. She’d assembled inexpensive cupboards for her clothes, and the dishes she’d collected from thrift stores sat on shelves above the bar-size sink. She stored a few cans of food, some cereal, and a box of macaroni and cheese next to the dishes, which she’d hidden behind a pretty curtain because there were no doors. Her TV sat on a rolling cart she pulled into the middle of the room.
Her things were secondhand, but they were hers, and this was her home. But it no longer felt like home.
Not without Matt and Noah.
The heavy weight of despair crushed her heart as she remembered every word he’d shouted at her. Closing her eyes, she wrapped her arms around her stomach like a child with a belly ache. In those awful moments she’d actually reverted to the little girl she used to be. The one who would have done anything to be loved, to matter to the people who were supposed to love her, and who’d finally figured out that wasn’t ever going to happen.
That little girl was always waiting for the next bad thing, always ready with her bags packed. Ready for the next time her mom got thrown out of their apartment. Ready when someone at the foster home didn’t like her, didn’t want her, said she ate too much, that she stole from the other kids, that she back-talked. Often she didn’t even unpack, but lived out of her bag, just in case.
She’d been living with her bags packed all her life. And when Matt lost it over the training wheels, she’d had that bag ready to go. With a snap of her fingers, she could poof herself right out of there and run away. Leaving had always been the only way.