Sophia watched him draw circles with the chopsticks, stirring the soy sauce and wasabi together. After a while, she found her voice and answered, “I have forgiven you, but I’m going to need more than a few months to forget.”
Ty slowly nodded before lifting his eyes to meet hers. They were glassy and swirling with remorse. She waited for him to apologize again, but that never happened. After a few blinks and a forceful clearing of his throat, Ty went about finishing his meal in silence.
Within the last several months, Sophia had come to appreciate silence when Wes was around. He wasn’t much for wasting words. But sitting here with Ty in silence was stifling. Nothing comfortable about it when it came from her larger-than-life ex. She could almost hear the gears whirling inside his brain and was worried about what they might be formulating. The only time she’d seen him that thoughtful and focused was on a football field.
Please don’t be forming a play with me involved, she silently begged.
Once they arrived back at the condo, Sophia was still waiting for Ty’s next move. Unfortunately, he didn’t disappoint. He helped her out of the SUV, and after closing the door, he gently pressed her against it.
“Ty—”
“Shh . . . Just give me a chance, babe. Please.” Ty’s words were a whispered plea. He leaned in, tucked a long lock of hair behind her ear, his eyes coasting every inch of her face. “No one compares to you . . .”
Sophia’s heart lurched in her chest when Ty bent and pressed his lips against hers. Memories of their kisses skipped through her mind. Familiar and confident, energetic and skilled, Ty’s signature style. The very same style that used to leave her breathless and swooning.
But not tonight.
Suddenly she was tired of being Sophia Prescott. The woman who was trying to be everything to everyone and never her true self. It was time to stop being Ty’s puppet.
Ty’s lips pleaded with her tightly locked ones to open, but Sophia kept him out. She raised her hands and pushed against his chest until he finally took the hint and stepped back.
“Don’t do that again,” Sophia said evenly.
“Babe, it’s time we fix this.” Ty pouted his lips and tipped his head to the side, still pleading.
“There’s nothing to fix.” She was careful to make her tone resolute but not terse.
“But what about our son?” He tossed his only leverage into the argument, but Sophia was done allowing him to play their son against her.
“I will always love you to a certain degree, but . . .” She took a deep breath. “There’s been too much damage to repair our relationship back to the original, but I want us to work on repairing it to a new way. For the sake of our son, I want us to form a healthy friendship.”
“Don’t close the door on it becoming more.”
“Ty—”
He raised his palms. “Let’s just leave it here.” He backed away and rounded the front of the SUV to the driver’s door. “Good night.”
And just like that, Sophia was left in the parking lot watching as the taillights faded down the street. The man was tenacious to a fault, going whole hog when it was something he wanted. Too bad it wasn’t going to work in his favor this time.
Sophia took in her surroundings for a few beats, listening to the chilly breeze rustling through the trees and the pond fountain tinkling on the water nearby. Smiling, she was right proud of herself for being strong enough to stand her ground. After releasing a fist pump, she turned her back on her toxic past and went inside.
•••
Come morning, Sophia’s smile was long gone. Releasing a pent-up growl, she yanked off the third dress, tossing it on top of the growing pile of clothes deemed uncomfortable. Nothing felt right. Either the fabric was too itchy or the cut was wrong. Surprisingly, the last one was a bit snug—evidence that her appetite had finally returned to normal.
A quick glance at the clock on the way to the closet made her insides spasm with panic. The window for making a clean getaway was rapidly closing. The palazzo pants and a frumpy blouse—which should have been as comfortable as a pair of pajamas but wasn’t—would have to do.
It was then, in a rush to grab her purse and dash into Collin’s room, that it hit her. The discomfort had nothing to do with the outfits. The day ahead was ill-fitting. She couldn’t figure out exactly why, except that she knew Ty would be present in it.
“Let’s go, bub.” Sophia scooped Collin up from the mess of toys he was playing with, placed a kiss in the midst of his silky curls, and raced to beat the inevitable. “Shoot,” she muttered to herself as she hurried down the outside steps. “Too late.”
“My two favorite people!” Ty’s voice boomed across the parking lot as he closed his car door and walked in their direction.
“Daddy!” Collin echoed his enthusiasm and began to squirm about in Sophia’s arms.
Ty ate up the distance between them in only a few hobbling steps. The boot on his foot was barely noticeable underneath the tailored navy trousers. He plucked Collin out of her arms and tossed him in the air, eliciting a fit of giggles and squeals.
Even though a foreboding feeling kept tightening along her shoulders, Sophia couldn’t help but smile at how happy her baby boy was with his daddy back in his life. Her eyes betrayed her by coasting the length of Ty. Dark navy and silver were his team’s colors, but he always wore them like they were his very own, just as he was this morning in the custom-made navy suit and the narrow silver tie. With the sun emphasizing the coppery undertone of his brown hair and warming his already-bronze skin, the man wore his good looks like a boss. Problem was, he knew it.
“Like what you see, babe?” Ty produced a wink to go with his signature aw-shucks grin before carrying Collin over to the Range Rover and loading him up in a brand-new car seat he’d purchased since arriving in town. That should have clued her in on how serious he was, but she kept ignoring all those signs, hoping they would go away.
Sophia watched Ty work at buckling Collin in, recalling another time she’d ignored signs and how devastating that turned out. The moment her former PR firm signed the talented running back, Sophia was smitten. She couldn’t—or didn’t want to—see past all the excitement and passion of finally experiencing her first love. It was a whirlwind romance for sure, and the naive young woman found herself married and pregnant before they made it through Ty’s first NFL season. And it was perfect for the first two years, before Sophia started to notice the minuscule cracks in Ty’s perfection. Intuition told her to pay attention to those cracks, but she looked the other way, hoping she was wrong. It took two more years of looking the other way before the Prescotts’ glass castle completely shattered.
“I’ll follow you guys.”
“Why, babe? It makes no sense to take two vehicles.” Ty glanced over his shoulder, seeming to be struggling with the harness.
Sophia nudged him out of the way and readjusted the harness to the proper fit before latching it. She placed a kiss on Collin’s cheek before turning away and closing the door. “Collin has a playdate after church. It’ll be easier to drive separate,” she defended, even if the playdate was much later in the day. She rounded the back of the vehicle to dodge any advance Ty might have thought about making.