The Player and the Single Mom

I might be in over my head.

Ava was scared to fly and from what Sera said, hadn’t slept at all the night before. Our flight was at six, so we had to leave Sera’s house at four-thirty. Sera wasn’t feeling well either and had already thrown up in a bag in the car. Marigold was half-asleep on my back, dead weight, and Johnny had already lost his phone twice. This was our second time going through security because the first time he’d left it at the ticket counter. Then he’d thrown it away in the trash at the beginning of security when he’d ditched his energy drink.

Sera had to paw through the garbage with him to find it, not helping her nausea.

Bending down to grab the backpack disturbed Marigold, who started to slide off of me. I had three carry-ons and a five-year old on my back and all were starting to break loose. I swore and ditched the bags, kicking one with my foot to move it forward in the line.

“You said a bad word,” Marigold said.

Of course she woke up to hear that.

Sera wrinkled her nose at me. “There’s still time to pull the plug on this.”

I was going to assume she meant the trip and not our entire relationship and plan to move in together.

“I’m really hot,” Ava said, her voice rising. “I’m serious, Mom, I’m going to be sick.”

She sounded so much like Sera it was a little unnerving. “Take your coat off,” I said, reaching out and peeling the denim jacket down by grabbing the collar in the middle of her back. She moved forward out of it and I tossed it on the pile of our luggage on the floor.

There was a businessman who kept inching further and further away from us. A grandmotherly type was eyeing Ava with sympathy.

I refused to be beat.

“Everyone is going to be fine,” I said, as if stating it would make it true. “We just need to get to our seats and settle in. I think some people could benefit from a nap.”

Like me.

I bent over again, holding Marigold on my back with one arm and unzipped my carry on with my right hand. I dug around in there and found the ginger gum I’d bought for Sera back in February. “Ava, chew this,” I said, handing her the pack. “Then give your mom a piece, please.”

It was a testament to how lousy she felt because she did it without question or commentary.

“Marigold, get down. We need to take our shoes off,” Sera said, pulling her daughter off my back.

We went through security as the family that annoys all business travelers, with lots of pauses, going back for another bin, and receiving repeated instructions to remove things we’d forgotten to remove.

On the other side of security, I was gathering our bins and passing back out jackets and shoes and phones. I had a whole new level of respect and appreciation for my parents and in particular for Sera. I wasn’t sure how she had wrangled these kids on her own all these years.

“Uh oh,” Johnny said, tossing aside Sera’s purse and Marigold’s shoes in a bin.

“What?”

“I can’t find my phone.”

Of course he couldn’t.

“Moron,” Ava said.

“Shut up.”

“Don’t talk to each other like that. Just put your shoes on, Johnny,” Sera said. “Then we’ll go through all the bins.”

“I don’t want to miss this flight,” I said. “If we miss it, we might not be able to get seats together or in business class.”

“So we’ll fly in coach,” Sera said.

Not going to happen.

“Sweetheart, I am not flying in coach. I am six-foot-five with size fifteen feet. You’re six feet yourself. You’d be miserable in coach. I’d rather go home and come back tomorrow than fly in coach. Even though Faith’s graduation is today.”

Her eyebrows raised. “I found your diva side. Finally.”

I shrugged. “I’m a big man.” I went through our remaining two bins, handing Marigold her shoes, Sera her purse, and Ava her jacket. “I don’t see Johnny’s phone. Someone call it.”

No one did anything.

Next trip we took would be no earlier than nine in the morning. I wasn’t awake enough for this level of problem solving and clearly no one else was either.

I pulled my own phone out and called Johnny. It rang. In his pocket.

“Oh. Here it is.” He pulled it out. “I must have put it back in my pocket.”

I almost laughed but I was too tired.

“Just think, Cash, we’re adding a baby to this. Picture a stroller and a carseat and a carrier and a baby crying hysterically.”

Damn.

Show no fear. It worked in football and it was going to work in fatherhood.

“We’ve got this. We’re all good, babe.”

Marigold tripped over Johnny’s foot. I caught her by the neck of her hooded sweatshirt before she landed face first on the tile floor.

Ava turned and without warning threw up into a trash can.

The trip was not off to a fantastic start.

But when we got on the plane Marigold told Sera, “I want to sit by Daddy,” and took my hand.

I put my opposite hand on my chest, like I could rub out the emotion that had risen inside me.

It was like being handed the keys to the kingdom.

At that moment, I fully and completely understood that everything about my life had changed forever.

Sera

My kids couldn’t have playedtheir parts better if I had paid them. In addition to the efforts it took just to get on the plane, Johnny and Ava fought endlessly on the flight, Marigold spilled a glass of milk in Cash’s lap, and Johnny somehow managed to lose Cash’s noise canceling headphones right off his own head, only to go back to the restroom and find them there. Where Johnny had set them down in the restroom, I wasn’t sure, but the look on Cash’s face made it clear he would never be using those headphones ever again.

I’d been serious when I had told him he still had time to bail. I’d meant the trip at the time, but partly the relationship as a whole. He was taking on a hell of a lot.

He’d handled it all well though. With his Cash calm. He should patent that trait.

An hour into the flight he was sleeping, head on a pillow propped against the window. His mouth was slightly open and he was snoring softly. Just looking at him made me go all soft inside. He was good looking in that guy next door way, with a straight nose and those warm brown eyes. He was sexy as hell when he gave me that look that lit my insides on fire. He was sweet and kind and generous.

On Mother’s Day he had brought me four dozen roses, each bouquet a different color. Yellow, ivory, pink, and peach. One dozen for each of my children and the baby on the way.

Who wouldn’t love a man who thought of doing something like that?

I was one-hundred-percent falling in love with Cash and holy hell, it was scary.