Focused: A hate to love sports romance(65)

"Hey, bud. No school today?"

"Nope. Mom said you needed the tightest hug ever."

My throat pinched. "I do. Thank you."

He set his chin on my stomach and looked up at me with huge eyes. "Can you help me with my math homework? You're good at it, and Mom said she doesn't do that bullshit."

"Traitor," Paige yelled over the sound of my laughter. "And that's a buck in the swear jar, you little potty mouth."

"It's not swearing if I'm repeating something you said."

"Ooh, get her with logic," I whispered. "I approve."

He grinned. "Is that a yes?"

I rubbed his back. "I'll tell you what, you give me thirty minutes of girl time—no interruptions—and then I'll help you."

"Deal!" He ran off, feet pounding up the stairs toward his room.

Paige leaned her shoulder against the wall by the kitchen and gave me a small smile. Her red hair was braided over her shoulder, and as usual, she looked so beautiful, it was hard to stare for too long. That was the problem with having a former supermodel for your surrogate mom. "How's my girl?"

I shrugged. "I don't know."

She held open her arms, and I walked into them without further encouragement. Paige sighed, running her hands down my hair. "Tell me what you need from me because sometimes I take my violent, angry support too far, and I'm told by parties that shall not be named that it's not always the most helpful thing I can do."

I smiled, burying my face in her shoulder. "Logan said that?"

"He's such a killjoy." She leaned back and cupped the side of my face. "You look sadder than I thought you would after talking to you. I mean, I know you're sad. You loved your job. But your heart." She swept a thumb over my cheekbone, and it came away wet from the tear that escaped. "It hurts, doesn't it?"

The canny observation—one that could only be made by someone who really, truly knew me—had me sinking into her arms again. I sniffed noisily. "I saw Noah in the parking lot, a-and," I sobbed, "he said he missed me, and I miss him too, but what does that mean, right? He's such an idiot. He hasn't said one word to me in weeks. Weeks! And then he's asking me why it's so hard to see me, and why it's so hard to talk to me. Ugh. Why do I have to answer those things for him, you know?" I hiccupped as Paige turned us, her armed wrapped tight around my shoulder so she could steer me toward the couch in the living room. "It's not like I'm sitting around waiting for Noah Griffin to explain things to me now that we've had sex. Like, figure it out on your own, you moron."

"Ohhhhkay, my husband left out a few things when he texted me," Paige said under her breath. Once I was tucked into the corner of the couch, I tugged my favorite pillow into my lap and toed off my Chucks.

Once the plush weight was clutched to my chest, I watched her over the silky edge. "Logan didn't tell you about the whole I slept with Noah and that's what got me fired thing?"

Her eyebrows lifted so slowly, so high on her forehead that I worried for a moment that they'd get stuck. "No, no, he did not."

"Erm, yeah. That was, well, that was why I said maybe we shouldn't resort to pyrotechnics against Beatrice. I kinda earned my spot in the ranks of the unemployed."

Paige let out a slow breath, her thoughts stamped loudly over her face. Concern was first and foremost, and the thing I saw most clearly. Very deliberately, she spun on the couch, crossed her legs, folded her hands primly between them, and faced me fully. "What shall we tackle first? The job or the sex?"

When she put it that way, maybe I'd been a little close-lipped with my family since I got back from my weekend away. I frowned. It wasn't like me to keep stuff from them, not big things like this, but I'd been in survival mode, convincing myself that I was fine with what happened in South Dakota stayed in South Dakota.

I’d worked overtime to keep a lid on the part of myself that missed him, missed talking with him, laughing with him, and teasing him until he allowed a crack in his reserve. It had been easier not to talk about him at all than to face the reality that it had only been one weekend, despite what it had meant to me.

Paige shifted restlessly when I didn't answer immediately.

"Please, give me guidance, because my mind is about to explode if I don't get clarification"—her voice rose in pitch and volume—"on the fact that you slept with the boy who used to live next door, and I didn't know about it, and it cost you your job. I don't know what to say about any of it, Molly, and you not telling me is freaking me out," she cried.

I smiled, leaning forward to grab one of her hands. "Deep breaths, okay?"

It was similar enough to what she had told me earlier when I called from my office that we both laughed. "Sorry," she said. "It's just ... you're throwin' a lot at me, kiddo. What do we deal with first?"

My swallow was rough, hard to get down, but it was Paige, so I had to be honest. "This may not be the empowered female answer where I say that nothing matters except my career and he's just a guy, and I don't need a guy to feel complete or happy or to love myself."

"There is a time and place for all of those things," she interjected. "But there's no one size fits all for what makes people happy, okay? If there was, we'd have a black and white checklist to follow."