“He seems much happier,” I said.
“Definitely.”
I sank onto the chair across from her and met her gaze over the rim of her cup.
“So, uh, how many days are you home?” she asked.
“I leave on a road trip Tuesday morning, so the next five days gives us some time to figure out what we’re going to do.”
“Well, there’s no doubt what we’re going to do,” she said dismissively. “Obviously, you can’t take care of the kids with your schedule, so I’m going to.”
“That’s why I suggested we hire a nanny,” I said patiently.
She squinted a little. “I hate to use the money Ben and Lauren left us for that kind of thing, but you might be right. Once we sell the house, I’ll be able to—”
“Sell the house? What the hell are you talking about? Why would we do that?”
“Because I’ll need the money to buy something in New York.”
“We can’t move to New York.” I frowned at her when she rolled her eyes at me.
“We can’t, but I can. I plan to move back eventually. Once I’ve gotten the hang of this parenting thing and—”
“Okay, slow your fucking roll.” I held up a hand.
“Watch your language.”
“He’s not going to repeat it, geez.” I looked at her questioningly. “When did we decide that you’re going to be the one raising the kids?”
She laughed, though it was pretty humorless. “I think that’s a given, Wes. How are you going to take care of them with your travel schedule and practice, and everything else that goes into being a professional athlete?”
“You’re here.”
“My job is in New York, so even though I’m working remotely for now, eventually I have to get back to my life. And going forward, that’s going to include Benny and Annalise. You and I will settle everything here and probably by summer, the kids and I will move back to New York City.”
Her words were like a punch to the gut. There was zero chance she was taking those kids away from me, and I’d use every resource available to me to stop her.
“Over my dead body.” I folded my arms across my chest.
She fixed me with another icy stare, but it wasn’t cute or hot this time. These kids had been left to me just as much as they had her, and I wasn’t giving them up. “Surely you’re joking,” she said finally.
“Not even a little. They wanted us to raise them, not you or me individually.”
“No, they wanted us to decide which of us would be best suited to raise them, and quite frankly, that’s me.”
“Why? Because you have breasts and a vagina?”
She flushed. “No, because you work crazy hours and travel.”
“From what I’ve heard, you work eighteen-hour days during Fashion Week and all kinds of other big events, you travel all over the world doing photo shoots and whatever, and Lauren even said once that you work more hours than Ben and she worried about you.”
“I’m single and on the verge of big things with my career,” she snapped. “So yeah, I work hard. But now I’ve got the responsibility of these kids so things have to change.”
“Yeah, you have to find a way to settle down here in St. Louis.”
She blew out a breath. “Wes, how can we possibly do this together?”
“I don’t know, but we have to try because this isn’t negotiable. I’m not giving them up.”
“Well, neither am I.” She lifted her chin a notch.
Her chest was rising and falling a little fast and I couldn’t help but notice that she had a spectacular rack. She’d always been such a freakin’ pain in my ass over the years, I’d never even bothered to look most of the time. It was hard not to now that we were living in the same house together, though, and I figured the view was a nice reward for all the ballbusting I put up with from her.
“Wes, I haven’t slept more than three hours at a time in five days. I’m tired, stressed, and still grieving. Maybe we should put this conversation on hold for a while. I just don’t have it in me to bicker with you right now.”
“Okay.” I quirked a smile at her. “I’m really not a bad guy, Hadley.”
She turned to me with wide hazel eyes, something inscrutable lurking behind them. “I never knew anything could hurt this much.”
There went all the wind in my sails.
I nodded, absently running a hand through my short hair. “Me either.”
“Let’s try not to fight in front of the kids, okay? Mostly Annalise, because she hears everything.”
“Deal.”
She paused, cocking her head a little so that the sunlight coming in from outside glinted on her dark hair, giving it an auburn glow and making me imagine what it would feel like to run my fingers through it.
“You, uh, think a nanny’s a good idea?”