“Gosh, Cade. You’re like a good scotch. You just keep getting better with age.” Talia reaches out to run her French-tipped fingers over my shoulder, like she has some sort of right to touch me. Like she’s forgotten our text exchange earlier this week. She was always forward, and maybe she’s always been like this when she shows up once a year.

Maybe it just didn’t bother me before now.

All the same, I take another step back, pulling Luke in front of me and putting both my hands on his shoulders. “How have you been?”

“Good.” She glances around the space in the field. “You know, living in the city. Keeping busy.”

I realize I don’t know what she does, but I also don’t care. She showed up with another man one year, pawing at him like it was going to make me jealous.

It didn’t.

“In Calgary?” Luke asks brightly.

“Yes, honey.” She looks down at him with a big smile. “Handsome like your daddy, but with Mom’s blue eyes.”

“My nanny is from Calgary!” is Luke’s response.

“A nanny! How adorable.” She bends down to see eye to eye with Luke. “Is she here today? I’d love to meet her.”

Before I can interject, Luke tears away. I can’t blame him for wanting to be close to Willa. She’s a comfort to him, where this other woman who lives a little over an hour away can’t bother to visit him more than once a year.

I turn just in time to see Willa’s eyes dropping from my frame down to Luke.

I also see Talia glance over her shoulder and wink at me.

28

Willa

Rhett: You know Medusa?

Willa: Not personally, no.

Rhett: Remember the part about not looking her in the eyes?

Willa: I’ve always kind of liked Medusa. If I were her, I’d wanna turn men into stone too.

Rhett: Pretend Talia is Medusa. But a version we don’t like.

* * *

This bitch is like a splinter I can’t get out. The sight of her nails sliding over Cade’s neck burned itself into my mind. She’s droned on and on about herself, and I’ve endured it with a level of politeness I’m extending to her only because she birthed one of my favorite people in the world.

And that must count for something.

“You have to be so sick of living out here.”

I smile flatly, staring at the squealing kids in the huge bouncy castle. “Not really,” I reply while avoiding Summer’s eyes. Because the last time I looked at her, she held her hands up beside her head and made little devil horns with an evil scrunched-up face.

“Aren’t you bored though? I mean, I grew up here. I know what it’s like. Once you’ve had a taste of the city, it’s hard to come back.”