Mickey didn’t answer. He swung right back out the door and slid it shut.

I would have made it if I hadn’t heard Pippa snort.

Since she snorted, I didn’t make it.

So I had to dash to the dining room so Mickey wouldn’t hear me burst out laughing.

* * * * *

“Hey, Amy?”

I was wandering down the hall to Mickey’s room where he had moved his brooding after the aftermath girlie discussion took epic proportions and lasted hours (and may have diverted onto other paths, like online shopping on Ash’s tablet).

Auden and Cillian were still attempting to kill people in the family room.

Rhiannon was gone.

As far as I knew, Pippa was still ensconced in Ash’s bedroom, carrying on the aftermath girlie discussion the two moms couldn’t hear.

Now, just Aisling’s head was out her door and she was looking at me.

“Yeah, blossom?”

“Dogfight,” she whispered then grinned a small, sweet grin. “I win.”

After delivering that, she closed the door.

Needless to say, the date went great.

Mickey was in his bedroom brooding.

I was headed that way smiling.

* * * * *

I winced even as Auden flipped his opponent to his back.

“Good, bud! Stay at him!” Mickey, sitting beside me, shouted.

“Don’t let up!” Cillian, sitting beside Mickey, yelled.

“Ash and me are gonna go get some sodas,” Pippa, sitting next to me, announced.

She and Ash got up from the bleachers as I looked to them then, with a mother’s sense, turned my head the other way and looked across to the end of the bleachers in the gymnasium.

Kellan was loitering there, eyes to Aisling.

Pippa was Ash’s cover.

They moved in front of us, but Ash abruptly stopped when Mickey’s hand darted out and caught her wrist.

I looked to him to see his head tipped back, eyes on his girl.

“Go to your boy but I don’t lose sight of you, hear me?”

“All right, Dad,” she huffed resignedly and irritably.

He let her go.

Pip aimed an amused grin at me.

I returned it.

The girls took off.

I jumped when Mickey shouted, “That’s it! You got it!” and the rest of our side started clapping.

I looked to my son on the mat just as the referee slapped his hand down and yelled, “Pin!”

Auden took his feet to more applause and Cillian jumping up and down on our bleacher, yelling “Right on! Auden rules!”

At this moment of victory for my son, I felt the hairs stand on end at the back of my neck. I turned my head just in time to catch Conrad looking away from me.

He was alone. No Martine. No Tammy.

A good choice.

It was sad but it was his lonely bleacher he’d made for himself.

I turned to Mickey who was grinning at the mat and clapping.

“You do know you’re going to have to back off this Ash and Kellan thing,” I advised.