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“He has,” I replied dryly. “But he prefers to play outside or with his toys.”
Waldren glanced at me, his smile dropping. “I betyoutaught him that.”
“It just came naturally to him.” I crossed my arms. “Now, I brought his car seat. You want it?”
“No, I don’t plan on leaving the house with him.”
“You need to order one, at the very least.”
“I’ll do it when he’s playing games.” Waldren waved me off, and my fists clenched. Why was he brushing off anything to do withmykid?
I pushed the thought back. I’d never let myself think about him as mine, but those letters from the town had gotten to me.
“You should do that, considering Judge Marlon is watching thisclosely,”Mollie said.
“Fine. Fine. You two worry too much. Come on, Eric, let’s go play.”
Eric looked between me and Waldren, and my heart broke.
I knelt to his level. “It’ll be okay. I’ll be back Sunday.”
Eric nodded. We’d already been over the details of the situationtime and time again. He knew he had to do this, just like I did.
But damn if his wide eyes didn’t kill me.
I hugged him tight, trying to keep myself together before letting him go. Waldren walked off with him and up the stairs.
“I fucking hate that guy.”
“Me too,” Mollie muttered. She glared up until her phone went off.
“Who was that?”
“It was Tammy. She texted me to ask if we could come by the diner.”
“We, as in both of us?”
Everyone in town knew that Eric wasn’t going to be with me for some weekends. I’d told everyone the court battle results myself, including the split custody. But I hadn’t told anyone when, mostly because I didn’t want them to ask me questions while I was adjusting to the change.
“It seems so. Want me to tell her it’s not a good time?”
I let out a sigh. Tammy was one of the first people I’d trusted, and though it was typical for me to hide when things were rough, I didn’t want to turn her down when she was obviously trying. “We’ll go. No promises on how social I’ll be.”
“You’ll do better than you think,” she said with a smile. “I’ll tell her.”
“I regret this,” I said when we pulled in. There were cars everywhere, filling up almost every space available. “Since when is Center Point packed on a Friday night?”
She laughed. “I did give you an out, but I think it’ll be fine. You might need the distraction.”
Tammy was waiting for us. “Welcome, you two. Whatever you get is on the house.”
“Really?” Mollie asked.
“What do you know?” I added.
“Yes really, and I know a few things.” She gave me a sad smile. “But I’ll ignore it if you don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Who talked?”