Cadence’s responding giggles make us all ring out in laughter, the sound echoing off the walls.
My laughter quickly dies as the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but it’s not from Ian’s embrace. It’s fromhim.
I turn my head in time for my eyes to connect with chocolate-colored eyes. The same eyes I’d stared into every night as I read bedtime stories and sang countless lullabies until they peacefully closed. Only the eyes I’m staring into now don’t belong to my daughter. They belong to her father, Griffin Turner.
23
October
After I finish the post-game press, get showered, and change, I put my headphones in and head down the player’s hallway that leads us out to where the team bus is waiting.
I’m just about to press play on my postgame playlist when I hear a voice that jump-starts my heart. I knew with tonight being Carson’s first game, there was a chance she’d be here if she wasn’t playing her own game. I quickly place my headphones back in their case and take a deep breath.
My heart rate quickens, and my chest tightens when her laughter echoes down the hall. The melodic sound awakened something inside of me that I hadn’t felt in so long. Flashbacks of what it was like to be the cause of that beautiful laugh hit me all at once.
Turning the corner, what had my pulse thundering only seconds ago suddenly causes my heart to stop dead in my chest.
I stand in shock as I stare into the icy-blue eyes that have haunted me for the past two years. Her face has paled into a ghostly shade of white, and she looks like she’s about to faint at the sight of me.
“Mama! Look! Mama!”
The fact that I can hear anything over the ringing in my ears is a miracle. This has to be a sick joke, because the scene playing out in front of me isn’t real life—it can’t be.
I try to gather myself, but I can’t. I’m stunned, frozen at the sight of Kenna,my Kenna, shrugging away from the guy with his arm draped over her shoulders.
And Carson is holding the blonde baby girl who just called her “Mama.”
Kenna goes to grab the baby girl from Carson and wraps the little girl into her arms, nuzzling her neck—breathing her in.
“Hi, baby,” she coos to the girl.
I watch as the little girl pulls back and grabs Kenna’s cheeks, placing a big, sloppy kiss on her face before giggling.
How is this happening? I knew it was over. We hadn’t spoken since that night in Boston, the night that changed everything.
But now it’sreallyover . . . for good. Kenna has moved on. She created a life with someone else. They started a family.
A family you’ll never be a part of.
My stomach sinks at the thought, my throat clogging with the realization.
Kenna turns her back to me, leaning in to whisper something to her brother.
The next moment happens as if in slow motion. The little girl peeks up at me over Kenna’s shoulder and the moment her dark, coffee-colored eyes meet mine,I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that’s my daughter.
My shock quickly transitions into confusion as the realization sinks in.
“Can someone please explain what’s going on?” I growl.
I watchas Carson winces, Kenna turns an angry shade of red, and Kenna’s parents go to grab the little girl—my daughter—from her arms.
“We’ll take her to the restaurant and meet you both there,” Liz says to Kenna and Carson.
“Ian, why don’t you ride with us,” her dad suggests.
“Works for me,” Ian replies. That’s when I realize Ian-mother-fucking-Nelson is the guy who had his arm slung over Kenna’s shoulder.
Carson goes up to his mom and wraps her and the little girl into a hug. “Uncle Carse loves you so much, Cadey Cat,” I barely hear him say to the girl before she’s swept away by Kenna’s parents.
