Sophia was always very responsible. She had to be. After such a rough start when she was a kid—when her father was practically a kid—she’d been forced to grow up fast.
Shit, Trista and I had our first when we were young. She was fifteen and I was fourteen.
But at least we had her parents at our sides.
Madden and his kids didn’t have that.
Not until he was taken in by his adoptive parents and shown how life should be.
“Anyway, how do you want your steak cooked, Dad?” Boz asked. “I think mine might need to be a little overdone to get rid of all this gray shit.”
My lips twitched and Sophia snickered. “I swear to God. If it’s not the best thing you’ve ever had, then I’ll buy you a steak from Roadhouse tomorrow.”
Boz gave her a handshake to seal the deal, and then pointed at me. “Grill is already fired up.”
I walked over and took the gray-looking steaks, hoping that I didn’t have to hurt my girl’s feelings, then walked out the door with Body hot on my heels.
When I got there, Boz had the grill way too damn hot, so I turned it down.
Just as it started to cool, I felt a body come up behind me and assumed it was Boz.
“You had this too hot, bud,” I told him. “Next time…”
The first indication it wasn’t Boz came when I smelled her.
The next was when I felt her hand come to my arm and say, “Now, the trick is just to get a quick sear on both sides. That’s probably why he had it up so high.”
That made sense, because Boz knew how to cook a steak. He’d been doing it since he was ten.
“Oh,” I lingered. “So it needs to be hotter?”
So you need to get closer so I can feel the way your body feels pressed up against my own again?
God, just the reminder of last night, of having her curled around me, was enough to cause my dick to pulse in reaction.
Being in a constant state of arousal was enough to make my head swim.
“No, it should be fine.” She paused as she gestured toward the grill. “All you need to do is lay it down for a few seconds, then flip it over and repeat. Shouldn’t take more than thirty seconds a side.”
I did as she instructed, searing each side for just long enough to get grill marks.
I didn’t say another word, painfully aware of her closeness, and what it was doing to my resolve.
After getting the steaks off the grill and turning it off, I snatched up the steaks and nearly groaned when I turned to find Sophia standing at the door, holding it open for me.
I would have to walk past her, brushing something of mine up along the side of her body.
I held my breath, praying we didn’t touch.
But that would’ve been something that was impossible—like telling the world to stop spinning.
I brushed past her breast, lower thigh, and everything in between, making my chest ache and my cock pulse.
I gritted my teeth as I moved, setting the steaks down on the counter a lot harder than I intended.
“I talked to Mom today,” Boston paused, waiting for my reaction.
And react I did.
If there was anything that could make my dick go down, it was the mention of Trista.
There wasn’t a lot about our marriage that’d been good.
We had kids way too young, putting us together way too early in our young lives. Hell, we didn’t know what we wanted out of life, but kids at age fifteen? That definitely wasn’t it.
And we didn’t like each other enough for that to have ever worked.
But knowing my homelife, as well as her dad’s strictness? We pushed through and married anyway, making an already bad situation worse.
Honestly? I’m surprised we stayed together as long as we did.
The only saving grace that we had was I was gone a lot in the beginning of our marriage, belonging to the US Army more than I belonged to my wife. Following that, I had a business that started thriving, and to keep my wife in the Michael Kors and Gucci that she liked, I worked a hell of a lot to keep up.
In the end, I saw the roof of a hotel room more than I saw the roof of my own house.
Until lately, when Trista was no longer a part of my house.
“And?” I urged.
“And she wanted to see if we could do a joint party. She said that it’s too hard to coordinate everyone’s schedules for multiple parties.” He hesitated.
That didn’t make sense. But I didn’t point it out to him.
Boz had turned sixteen last month. And sadly, Trista’s friends were my friends.
When we divorced, we hadn’t asked our mutual friends to choose, so a lot of the time, we still saw each other when we didn’t want to if we wanted to be with our friends.