Just The Way You Are(50)

"You were a teenage boy. You didn't need to feel anything but horny." She sat back in her seat. "I think we have a soccer game to get to."#p#分页标题#e#

"Oh, hell, Alli. Why do you have to make everything so damn difficult?" He started the car and pulled back onto the highway, wishing he'd never stopped in the first place. She was hardheaded and stubborn and she wanted too damn much from him. She always had.

* * *

The drive to the soccer field passed in stiff, painful silence. Alli wanted to break it, but she didn't know how. Sam kept confusing her with his words, with his actions. On one hand he seemed to be apologizing, but on the other, he still wouldn't ask her to come back to him. So they sat in their separate corners of the car and said nothing until he pulled into the parking lot by the soccer field and shut off the engine.

"I don't want to fight in front of Megan," she said abruptly. "It isn't fair to her."

"I don't want that either."

"Do you think we could call a truce?"

"Sure. Why not?" He started to open the door, but she stopped him once again.

"Wait," she said. She couldn't let things end this way. It was too awkward, too unsettled. Megan would pick up on the tension in a second.

"What now?" he asked.

"I want you to know that I think you're a good father in spite of everything else. Megan couldn't have a better dad. She knows that, and so do I. In case you thought otherwise."

His expression softened slightly. "And you're a good mother, Alli."

Finally, some common ground they could share. She sent him a tentative olive branch of a smile. "Maybe I do ask too much of you, wanting you to give up all your memories, all your feelings tor Tessa. But maybe you ask too much of me, too, expecting me to be able to forget her when you can't forget her. You know, I'm glad she's here. Because you have to find out what you are to each other. Until you do that, we're just going to be circling around her the way we always have, unable to move forward, unable to go back. We can't keep running in place. We're not getting anywhere."

"Have you considered the fact that Tessa has moved on? She came back for your grandmother, not for me."

"But, she wants—" Alli stopped. She had no idea what Tessa wanted, not really. She seemed to want Sam, but then again, she had waited an awfully long time to come back.

"You're trying to control it all, Alli. But you can't. I have a mind of my own and so does your sister."

And on that note, they got out of the car and walked over to the field where Megan's team was warming up. Along the way, they stopped to say hello to some of the other parents, and they both smiled and acted like nothing was wrong—the way they always did.

"I hate this," she muttered. "Everyone else seems to have the perfect happy family."

"Don't kid yourself. We're not the only ones with problems."

Megan waved to them from the field. "Hi, Mommy. Hi, Daddy," she yelled.

Alli willed herself to relax as she waved and smiled to Megan, but the truth was her body was so tense it almost ached. Being with Sam but not really being with him was so difficult.

He thought she made things hard, well, he made them even harder.

"Take a deep breath," Sam said in her ear.

She flung him a quick look. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not, you're about ready to pop. We're not going to solve anything in the next five minutes, so try to relax."

"I'm trying. I just feel so restless."

"The oysters sure didn't help," he said dryly.

She sent him a reluctant smile. "Good point."#p#分页标题#e#

"Hey, they're kicking off."

Alli looked back at the field and yelled, "Go Honeybees," as Megan's yellow-and-black team kicked off the ball.

And they were off, twenty-two little girls battling for a soccer ball as their parents yelled encouragement from the sidelines, some more critical than encouraging, Alli thought as one parent told her child to get off her butt and run.

It reminded Alli of the beauty pageants she'd participated in before her mother had decided they really only needed one beauty contestant in the family. Before that, there had been a litany of "Stand up straight, Alli; suck in your stomach; throw back your hair; look like you're having a good time." Torture was more like it. Well, she'd never do that to Megan.

Alli turned her attention back to the game, but she became more annoyed as Megan was repeatedly elbowed and pushed by one decidedly bigger child.

"Go forward, Meg," she yelled. "Stay forward."

"She's fine," Sam told her.

"She's supposed to be forward."