Page 16 of Offside and Off-Limits
“Be there in a sec,” I call back. “Kids, huh?” I say to Clara as the two guys disappear around the corner, only stopping to high five the guys watching the TV.
“How old do you think Iam?” she asks, her brows pulled together.
Well, that one backfired.
“I didn’t mean I was just making a joke.”
“A joke? Okay.”
“Sorry.”
She waves my apology away with a flick of her wrist. “It’s fine. And I’m thirty-one, in case you wanted to know.”
“Huh,” I reply, doing a quick calculation in my head.
“What does that mean?”
“Benny’s what? Seven or eight?”
“He’s eight.”
“You had him young.”
“My daughter’s ten,” she says, lifting her chin as though to challenge me.
“Realyoung,” I amend with a smile that I’m hoping will disarm her.
Not to boast, but I have been told my smile is disarming.
Her features relax a touch.
Heck, yeah. The famous Lennox smile strikes again.
“You’re right, Cade. I did have my kids young.”
“And their dad? I noticed you’re not wearing a ring.”
Yeah, I’m fishing. Don’t judge. The new me can still fish.
“Their dad is a few years older than me,” she replies with a smug smile.
Touché, Clara Johnson. Touché.
I guess that’ll teach me to get personal.
We stand in silence for a beat before she gestures at the exit to the locker room. “Aren’t you going to ‘make like Iron Man,’ too?”
“Make like Iron Man? Oh, you mean get into my game day gear? Sure. I just wanted to take this chance to say I was sorry for…well, I’m just sorry.”
She gives me a brittle smile. “I got that. Thanks.”
It’s hard to tell from her tone if she’s being sarcastic or not. I decide to go withnotbecause the way I see it, life’s too short to get hung up on the small stuff, and I much prefer to take people at face value than suspect them of ulterior motives.
“I’ll go get changed, but I warn you, I’m no dancer,” I tell her.
She smiles at me. “We’ll see about that.”
I guess we will.
