Page 33

What a dick.

Who does he think he is that he can just come back here and expect me to fall for him? Expect my kids to fall for him?

And damn it, why is that happening already?

I can’t escape his persona, and the confident shit has not changed. Nothing’s changed. Not his jet-black hair, his teasing dark eyes, or his rebellious nature. He’s still got that square jaw and that lean body that makes my panties wet.

My pantiesarewet. In fact, I had to change them. Urgh!

Aly, gurrrrrl. . . you don’t need a man in your life. You don’t.

That’s my mind telling me that, not my va jay jay. She’s got something else to tell me because she enjoyed that little teasing game her and Ridge’s cock played at practice.

But while we’re on this, you see the girl there trying to open the pickle jar by herself? The one repeating the “I don’t need a man” speech, you’ve heard that from every single woman out there who’s been tainted by love, haven’t you?

It’s a fact. That’s what the past six months have taught me. I do, however, need dick. I need wine and for a man to tell me I’m pretty. And dick. I don’t know how lesbians do it.

When Austin and I separated, it had been three months since we had sex. Three long months. You do the math; it’s six months. Now do you understand why I can’t stop drooling over Ridge, the hot-bend-me-over-your-desk-and-teach-me-a-lesson teacher?

It’s bad.So bad.

Grady comes up behind me in the kitchen, pushes a chair toward the counter, and brings himself to the same height as me and motions for the pickle jar. “Give that to me. I can do it, Mama.”

He’s so adorable. I hope he doesn’t grow up to be a douchebag like his father.

I hand it to him, and he struggles for a moment, tiny dark brow drawn together in determination to open it. I want to cry because he’s trying so hard to be a man and no eight-year-old should have to try to be a man. He’s already growing up too fast.

“I can do it,” he mumbles, grunting and then sighs and sets the jar on the counter. He wipes his small hands on the front of his football pants, then tries again. When it doesn’t open, he frowns. “Hold on, I’ll be right back.”

Grady jumps down off the chair, runs around the corner and disappears down the hall.

I glare at the jar and with as much force as I can muster. “You better open!” I whisper and finally, after a few attempts, it opens. Quickly, I screw the lid back on and set it back where Grady put it.

He returns with his glove Ridge gave him at football tonight. “This should help,” he says proudly, jumping back on the chair and fastening the Velcro. Reaching for the jar, he holds it against his stomach and attempts to open it again.

He gets it, with a big grin on his face, and hands the jar back to me, confidently like he’s just managed to lift a car off someone. “That’s how amandoes it.”

I burst out laughing at his sense of pride. “I never had any doubt, buddy.”

He smiles widely, two front teeth bigger than the rest and adorable as hell. The smile fades when he looks into my eyes, and I want to blink away the pain because if anyone senses how you feel, it’s little Grady Lance Jacob. Nothing gets past this kid.

“Mama?”

Tears burn my throat. “Yeah, bud?”

“Do you miss Daddy?”

No. I hate him. But I can’t tell my son that. “Sometimes. . . but you know what?”

“What?”

“I got the best part of him.”

“What part?”

“You and your brother.”

His cherry red lips finally pull back into the crooked smile his dad gave him, and his brown eyes that match mine gleam. “I won’t be mean like him. I’m not like that.”