Page 41 of Sneak Attack

Hmmm. Usually he had a lot to say about his day with his mom, but he’d been quiet last night, too.

Hell, maybe they’d gone to the pool, and he was worn out. Or getting nervous about school starting or something. I’d give him the day to see if he snapped back to his normal self by tonight and if not, then I’d hunt down the problem.

I finished up the pancakes and sausage, setting him on the floor with a pat to his backside to get him moving toward the table. “Orange juice or milk to drink?”

“Chocolate milk?” His grin almost had me.

“Nice try. I think there’s enough sugar in the breakfast already, don’t you?” I pointed to the syrup bottles and his eyes lit up.

“Yummmm.” His hand went to his belly, and he rubbed it in circles before climbing into his chair.

Chocolate milk forgotten, I poured him a glass of plain old regular milk. While he started drowning his pancakes in both blueberry and regular syrup, I fried eggs for me.

I was just getting done, flipped off the burner when the doorbell rang.

The clock on the microwave above my stove top told me it was early. I glanced at Jasper, to find his shoulders straightened, pulled back together and his fork hovering before his mouth.

The hell? “Jas?”

“Huh?”

“You okay?”

He shoved his fork into his mouth. “Uh-huh.”

The doorbell rang again and this time, woke up Bongo who barked. From the living room, his collar jangled and rattled as he shook his entire body and bounced toward the door.

“That’s probably your mom,” I told Jasper. “Keep eating, I’ll get it.”

She had to have gotten off work early, but he wasn’t anywhere ready to head out quite yet. The thought of Selma coming early just to spend time with us had my chest tightening before I reached for the front door handle.

I’d learned the other day and started keeping the door locked so she didn’t walk through my home like she had the right.

Which meant now, every morning, I opened the door and was welcomed with the sight of her pinched lips, irritation tightening her features.

“He’s still eating breakfast,” I said through the storm door. “It’s gonna be another fifteen minutes before I can get him outside. That okay?”

Selma huffed, hair still perfectly in place and scrubs with no wrinkle in sight even after her shift. “What am I supposed to do, Cole? Wait in my car? Come on—” She reached for the door handle, but I grabbed it from the other side.

“Don’t,” I scolded her harshly but softly, careful of my tone. “I’ve told you already, I don’t want you just walking into my house. It’s not cool. And if you haven’t noticed, Jasper hasn’t run to the door excited to see you and I’m trying to figure out why he just froze when you showed up, so until I know why that is, you can wait on the stoop, or in your car, but you’re early and I’ve got fifteen, now thirteen more minutes with him alone and I’m taking them.”

“Why are you being so difficult?”

“Same thing I could ask you.” I closed the door, locked it. She could stew on the front porch for all I cared, angrily tapping her heel to the pavement for the rest of the time I had with him.

No one cut short my time with my son, unless it was my choice, even his mom, who had some super bug up her ass lately and I wasn’t going to tolerate it. Or let it affect me.

With a heavy, quiet sigh, I blew out a breath and shook out the tension in my arms. Freaking Selma.

She could go from a decent friend to a brutal enemy in the space of a day and it sucked it was always on her terms.

“Eat up, bud,” I said, and ruffled Jasper’s hair as I sat down with my eggs.

“Mommy’s here?”

“Yep. She’s waiting outside for us. Had a call to make.” A lie, but one he needed. He glanced down at his plate, lip twisted as if he just realized his pancakes were swimming in sugar and no longer edible.

He stabbed a soaked chunk of pancake and chewed it. Leave it to my kid to suck up everything put in front of him. “She was grumpy yesterday.”

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