Change of Hart (13 page)

Danielle didn’t leave the entire time we were there. She didn’t even try to hide the fact that she had her eyes glued to me the whole time. So as we were drying off, getting ready to head out, it didn’t surprise me at all when she approached again.

“Are you having a good time, Jaxon?” she asked sweetly. Out popped the cleavage again when she bent over.

“It was awesome,” Jaxon said, a little less enthusiastically than normal. Hopefully I had worn him out. “Can we come back again, Jason?”

I smiled at him, trying my best to ignore Danielle. “Sure, buddy. We’ll have to talk to your mom but I’m sure we’ll come back soon.”

“So, Jason,” Danielle said, putting her hands on her hips and shifting her attention to me, “what do you have planned for the evening?”

I started packing up our stuff, refusing to make eye contact. “Oh, ya know . . . I’m dropping Jaxon off and then heading back to my place. I’ve got a game tomorrow night so I need to rest up.”

“I can come over and cook for you,” she said. “A man your size needs to get a good meal in him to keep his strength up on the field.”

“That’s a nice offer,” I said, not quite sure how to brush her off politely. “But I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Thanks, though.” I slung the beach bag over my shoulder. “See ya. Come on, Jaxon.”

He waved goodbye to Danielle and grabbed my hand. As we strolled to the parking lot he asked, “Is she your girlfriend?”

I snorted. “Not even close, buddy.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Well, there are three different kinds of women,” I told him as he clamored into the backseat of my car. “The kind you date, the kind you marry, and the kind you stay far, far away from.”

“Which one is she?” Jaxon asked innocently.

“The kind you don’t touch with a ten-foot pole,” I answered, shutting the door and walking around to climb inside the driver’s seat.

Jaxon talked non-stop for all of five minutes. Then it got quiet. I snuck a peek in the back to find him passed out cold . . . head back, mouth open. Just like a true little man. I chuckled and focused on the road ahead of me, enjoying the silence.

When we drove up into his driveway, I expected to have to carry him inside. But in true Jaxon fashion, he woke up like a shot and bounded out of the car.

“Mom!” he yelled as we walked in the door. Addison came walking around the corner from the kitchen.

“You’re home,” she said with a smile. “Did you have a good time?”

“Yeah! There was two diving boards and a slide and Jason threw me across the pool, just picked me up and threw me!” he said, mimicking all the motions like he was playing charades.

“Oh!” Addison said. “That sounds fun!”

“Yeah, it was. Can me and Jason go swimming again, Mom? Pretty please?” he begged, looking at her with puppy dog eyes.

“Not tonight,” she started. “But we’ll talk about doing it another day, ok?”

“Yeah!” Jaxon said, throwing his arm in the air.

“Why don’t you take the beach bag in the other room and start unloading it while I talk to Jason, ok?

“Ok,” he said, dragging the bag behind him.

She turned to look directly at me. “So, how was he?”

“Exhausting,” I said truthfully. “I have not played that hard in a pool in years.”

She giggled. “I should have warned you that even the water doesn’t slow him down.”

“Yes, you should have,” I agreed. “I might have asked you to give him a dose of Benadryl before we left. He sounded a little sniffly, ya know.”

“I bet,” she said with amusement. “But just so you know, Benadryl makes him even more hyper, if that’s possible.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. Did you enjoy having a few hours to yourself?”

“Yeah, it was nice,” she said, flipping her hair back from her shoulder and putting her hands in her back pockets. “I cleaned up a little and then sat down and read a
book
,” she emphasized the word “book.” “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been able to do that?”

“Mmmm,” I said, bobbling my head back and forth, “Maybe seven years or so.”

“Yeah,” she laughed. “I bet you guys are hungry now. Would you like to stay for dinner?”

Nothing could shock me more than the invitation she had just extended. Except for the little tornado that blew in right at that moment.

“He can’t, Mom,” Jax answered for me. “Danielle is cooking Jason dinner at his place. She said he could have anything he wanted.”

My eyes widened as Addison’s head whipped up to glare at me. “Who is Danielle?” she asked through narrowed eyes. Once again, Jax answered before I could even put my thoughts together.

“She’s this lady at the pool. She’s really pretty, Mom. She had on this green bathing suit that did this,” he cupped his pecks like he was holding up breasts. At that point, I couldn’t look anymore. I just rubbed my hand over my face, praying he would stop. But he didn’t. “And she helped Jason put sunscreen on his back because he couldn’t do it and watched us the whoooole time we played! She was really nice.”

The silence after his revelation was deafening. When I finally pulled together the nerve to look up at Addison, I almost looked away. I could see the fury in her eyes.

“You brought a
date
when you took my son swimming?”

“She wasn’t a date,” I defended. “She’s a woman who lives in my building.”

The look on her face indicated that I may have just made things worse. “So you brought a
booty call
when you took my son swimming?”

“Uh, no,” I said. “I ran into a woman who lives in my building when we got there. I
ignored
her except for the two times she approached us.”

“Uh huh,” she said. “Hey Jax, since you didn’t change yet, go grab your clothes out of the bag and put them on, ok? I want you dressed for dinner.”

“Ok,” he agreed and took off again, leaving me alone with his mother. Normally I would’ve liked being left alone with her. But not right now.

“Listen, Addison, he made it sound a lot worse than it was,” I started.

“Really,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “My son is making gestures about her chest. You call that innocent?”

“Well, I can’t exactly help it that she had her,” I paused, “assets on display. We were at the pool, ya know.”

She threw her hands up in the air. “I can’t believe you, Jason! I trusted you to take care of my son! Not to give him an introduction to the birds and the bees!”

“Addison, that’s not what happened! Listen, can we talk about this outside?” I gestured toward the door. “That little tornado could walk in any moment and I wanna explain myself. I haven’t done anything wrong here.”

She paused for a minute, lips pursed. “Fine,” she said. “But only because I’m curious about the company you keep before letting you take him somewhere again.”

She walked out the door in front of me and I closed it behind us. That’s as far as we got before she really started laying into me.

“I can’t believe you let my son hang out with one of your . . . floozies!” she practically yelled.

“Floozy?” I asked. “What generation do you live in?”

She pointed her finger right into my chest. “Don’t change the subject, Jason. Why would you do that?”

“Listen,” I said, hands up defensively. “She’s a sad, pathetic woman who lives in my building. She’s a sad, pathetic,
married
woman.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“No, but it should give you an idea of what I couldn’t say in front of Jaxon. She’s a whore, Addison.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“No, not
my
whore. Just in general. Every time her husband goes out of town, which is often, all the men in the building know it. She hits on all of them. Me included.” I took a step toward her. “She happened to be at the pool today and approached us. I politely turned her down and tried to avoid her. But she’s really stubborn and doesn’t give up easily.”

“So you accepted her invitation for anything you want,” she said matter-of-factly.

I scoffed. “Hardly. I have never gone there and never will. She’s not the first gold digger to sniff in my direction. And she won’t be the last. But I’m smarter than that. I’ve seen the damage they do once they chew you up and spit you back out.”

“You let her rub sunscreen all over you,” she said quietly, looking me square in the eye.

“No, I prevented her from rubbing
anything
on me,” I said. “I made her use the spray. And I only let her do it because protective gear on the field and sunburns don’t mix.”

Addison was looking at the ground, a little on the defeated side when a thought occurred to me.

“Addison,” I said, bending over to look her in the eye. “Are you . . . jealous?”

Her head whipped up. “What? No way! I’m just worried about my son.”

I barked a laugh. “I don’t think so. You’re jealous!”

“I am not!” Her arms dangled at her side in fists. She was getting feisty and starting to flush a little. It was a side of her I didn’t know she had.

“Yes you are,” I said with a smile. “So forget all this crap. Go out with me.”

“I am not going out with you!” she said incredulously.

“Why not? I know you think I’m hot.” If I was gonna push her buttons, I might as well go all the way.

“I do not think you’re hot, Jason Hart!”

“There ya go, lying again. I know you think I’m hot because I think you’re hot right back.”

“You . . . ,” she stammered, her feistiness deflating. “You think I’m hot?” she asked.

I smiled at her. “Not only do I think you’re hot, I think you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. And I like talking to you and hanging out with you.”

“Oh,” she said, looking stunned.

“I know it’s only been six months, and I know you’re still grieving over losing your husband . . .”

“I stopped grieving over that bastard a month before he died,” she interrupted. As soon as she said it, her eyes went wide like she had just mistakenly revealed some big secret.

I paused and cocked my head, trying to figure out what she was trying to say. “I’m sorry . . . what?”

“No . . . nothing,” she said nervously. “Just forget I even said it.”

“Um . . . that’s not gonna happen,” I said slowly. “The only way I know of that you can grieve someone before they die is if . . . you
know
they’re going to die.”

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Ohmygod, Jason, you need to stop watching so many cop dramas. I didn’t kill Austin.”

“Then can you explain what you mean, please? Because that was weird.”

She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t like talking about it because it’s personal.”

“Yeah, well you already started, so you might as well finish the story,” I said.

She looked down and paused. It took her a few seconds to think about her words, but I gave her time. I felt like what she was about to tell me was important. “About a year before Austin died, we got a bill in the mail from some credit card company. I knew we didn’t have a card with this company so I started doing some digging. I was determined to figure out if someone had stolen our identity or what was going on. Instead, I found out that Austin had opened the account. So I started looking more closely at the charges. Hotels, florists, jewelry stores . . .”

“He was cheating on you,” I interrupted.

She shrugged. “When I confronted him, he swore he would end it. That it had been a mistake and he loved me. And I stupidly believed him.”

“He didn’t stop the affair?” I asked, already starting to feel angry that her husband could just toss her aside for another woman.

“Of course not. She had just graduated from college when he met her at work,” she said, sitting down on the steps. “She was young and beautiful. I wasn’t old. I’m only 31. But I was a mom with a mom’s body. And I did mom things like take care of his son. For two years he had been seeing her. Two years.” Her elbows were on her knees, her hands clasped in front of her. I sat down next to her. “When I confronted him the second time, he told me he wasn’t going to stop seeing her. Said he had fallen in love with her. That she was his best friend.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“That’s the thing,” she said, still staring at her fingers. “I didn’t know what to do. I could take Jaxon and leave him, but I hadn’t worked in six years. Technology changes faster than that. I didn’t have any real marketable skills. How would I take care of us? And then I had to take Jaxon into consideration. Do I leave and uproot his whole word? Put him in daycare every day? Only let him see his dad, whom he worshipped, every other weekend? I was stuck in an impossible situation.”

I looked out to the road in front of us. “And then he died.”

She looked over at me. “You know he was headed to work from marriage counseling when he was killed? He had left a little early to get to some big meeting, supposedly. Once he left, the counselor had told me that I really needed to sit down and weigh my options. That there was no indication he was going to divorce me because he was getting the best of both worlds.” She snickered sadly. “Before I could even start making a list of pros and cons, fate stepped in and made the decision for me.”

“Wow,” I said, not sure what else to say. “I’m really sorry he put you through all that. He sounds like a real jerk.”

She smirked. “I didn’t think so when I married him. Turns out I wasn’t the best judge of character.”

I cleared my throat. “You’re not a bad judge of character. He just made some really douche moves.”

“I agree.”

“But Addison, I’m not him,” I said, turning my whole body to face her. “I have never, ever cheated on a girlfriend and I certainly wouldn’t start now.”

“Jason,” she said softly, “I’m not turning you down because I think you would cheat on me.”

“You’re not?” I asked, confused.

“No, Jason, I
know
you would eventually cheat on me. That Danielle woman is a good representation of your life when it comes to women,” she said, waving her hands around as she talked. “Eventually some young, glamourous, successful woman would come along and we’d be forgotten.”

I started to speak, but she put her hand on my forearm, stopping me.