I was right.
It wasn’t over.
Because sitting in the passenger seat of the SUV was a small rectangular box.
“What is this?” I demanded as Lance situated himself in the driver’s seat.
“New phone,” he answered, though it was obvious what it was.
I clenched the box. “Whose?”
He regarded me. “Yours.”
“You are not buying me a new phone,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Already did,” he commented.
“Well take it back,” I demanded.
“Get in the car,” he countered.
I tried to take some long, cleansing breaths so my son, watching raptly from the back seat, did not see his mother lose her shit right before he went to school.
It was that thought that had me getting in the car. Not because Lance told me to in that cold, authoritative sexy voice, but because my son needed to get to school.
That’s what I told myself anyway.
Lance didn’t pull the car from the curb until I had checked Nathan’s seatbelt inside his car seat—which had been put in at an earlier date—and buckled my own.
I pretended that didn’t affect me in the slightest.
“I’m not accepting this,” I said, shaking the phone at him while he drove.
“You are.”
“I can buy my own phone,” I lied through gritted teeth.
He looked sideways at me as he pulled up to a stop sign. He waited the full three seconds before he went, even though the coast was clear. He didn’t strike me as a three-second man—in any sense of the expression—so I reasoned it was because me and Nathan were in the car.
I pretended that didn’t affect me either.
“I smashed your phone,” he said by answer.
“He did, Mom,” Nathan chimed in, making sure that we both knew he was following the conversation. “Why did you do that, Captain?” he asked, curiously. He hadn’t asked me that question last night or this morning. I’d honestly thought he’d forgotten about it.
But no, my kid didn’t forget about anything. He just held onto things and waited for the perfect moment.
Lance glanced in the rearview mirror to make fleeting eye contact with Nathan before his eyes went back to the road. “I did it because I lost control of my temper.”
I did not expect Lance to answer honestly, but then again, I didn’t expect him to lie to my son either.
“What does temper mean?” Nathan asked.
Lance glanced back again. “It means you get angry in front of people you shouldn’t and do things you shouldn’t. Good men never lose control of their temper. Especially not in front of women.”
I blinked rapidly as he spoke, my stomach swirling. Because he was talking to Nathan, but the words were for me.
Was this some kind of distorted apology?
“Momma, I’ll never lose my temper with you,” Nathan said. “I promise I’ll always remember where I put it.”
I choked out a laugh and turned in my seat to regard my little boy.
“I could never be angry with you anyway,” he continued. “You’re the best mom ever. You play games with me outside, you let me watch movies and never yell at me like my friend’s moms do. Plus, you’re gonna let me eat my hamburgers through strawers.”
I tried to swallow both my laughter and tears at this. “You’re the best son ever,” I responded, my voice kind of thick.
He grinned wide. “Duh.”
I turned back in my seat so Nathan didn’t see the single tear that escaped from the corner of my eye.
Lance saw, of course.
Because he saw everything.
Even things I didn’t even know I was showing him.
Neither of us spoke after we’d dropped Nathan off. Not until we’d almost made it to the diner.
Me, because I was totally pissed off and couldn’t trust myself not to yell at Lance and say things that I might regret later.
I didn’t get angry often, and when I did, I made a concerted effort not to speak to people from a place of anger. Because anger was only temporary, but words born from it were not. I was well versed in how words could cut, carve, and destroy parts of people that even fists couldn’t do.
Though I doubted that whatever I could say to Lance would really affect him.
Then again, I hadn’t thought that I’d affected him at all until my phone was smashed at my feet.
“Where were you last night?” I asked as we stopped at the last set of traffic lights before we’d pull into the diner’s parking lot.
“Your ex’s place,” he answered, looking straight ahead.
I turned so I could gape at him. It wasn’t like I’d half expected him to have gone there, I just didn’t expect him to offer up the information so readily.
“Why?”
He still didn’t look at me. Nor did he answer.
“What did you do to him?” I asked, glancing up at the light, knowing this conversation had a time limit.
“Educated him on how it would be in the best interests of his health if he stayed away from you and Nathan. Showed him the consequences of what would happen if he didn’t.”