To Hate Adam Connor

“I’d fly away!”

“Where do you wanna fly?”

“You’re weird, Lucy,” Aiden announced.

“Good weird or bad weird?”

A moment of hesitation on his part.

“Good weird. I like you.”

“That’s good,” I said with a smile. “I like you, too.”

“Aiden,” Adam called out; I peered at him over the chair.

Handsome bastard.

He walked toward us with easy steps and my eyes took in everything that was Adam Connor. He looked at me, so of course I looked away, but damn those eyes of his.

He kneeled between our lounge chairs, his fingers holding on to the chair mere inches away from my face. He focused on Aiden.

“Dan is on his way over here. Is it okay with you if I leave you with him for a few hours?”

Aiden shrugged.

Well, well, well…isn’t that interesting?

“I need you to look at me, Aiden,” Adam said with a sigh.

Aiden’s eyes lifted up to his father, but I could see it was the last thing he wanted to do.

“I need to go and see my lawyer. Will you be okay with Dan?”

“Why can’t I stay with Lucy?” Aiden asked.

Adam’s gaze found mine.

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“Because,” he started, looking back at Aiden again. “I’m sure Lucy has other things to do. I’ll be back as soon as I can, then I want to talk to you about what happened and how it’s never going to happen again, okay?”

Ah, so that was why the little human was giving him the cold shoulder.

Aiden shrugged again. “What are we gonna talk about? You didn’t want me, so Mom took me away to fly.”

My eyes flew to Adam, and I saw his entire body tighten in a scary way. “Is that what your mom told you, Aiden?”

Aiden’s answer was reluctant. “No.”

“Get up,” Adam ordered, and I realized I was intruding on another private moment, but heck, at that point it wasn’t my fault anymore. They should’ve stopped having those moments around me. So I stayed.

Aiden uncurled his body from the lounge and stood in front of his dad. His eyes dropped down to his shoes as he twisted and twisted those little fingers.

Adam gently lifted his chin up so he could look into his eyes. “I know you’re confused with everything that’s been going on, the back and forth between your mom and—”

Aiden scrunched up his face. “I’m not confused. You don’t wanna kiss and squish Mom anymore, so you got yourself a divorce.”

My lips twitched, but I kept it under control. Adam, on the other hand…Adam didn’t look all that amused, but, God, did he look sexy with that scowl on his face.

“We both wanted the divorce, Aiden. It wasn’t just me.”

Another shrug.

“So you still want to kiss and squish Mom?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Boy, was he screwing this up.

“I think your dad loves you very much, Aiden,” I jumped in. It wasn’t my place to say anything, but the sexy dad was taking too damn long to get to the point. Both the father’s and son’s gazes turned to me and it was my turn to shrug. “I know how upset he gets when you leave to spend time with your mom. I saw it myself. He sits around and cries all day.” I scrunched up my nose. “It’s pathetic, really.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Aiden said with bright a smile.

“Oh, he does, little bug. I saw it myself.”

He cocked his head. “Were you watching him over the wall again, Lucy?”

“Yep.”

He turned to his dad and threw his arms around his neck. “I don’t want you to cry, Daddy. I won’t leave you and go to fly again. I promise.”

Adam met my eyes as he held on to his son. “No, you won’t leave me. I’m not letting you go. Not anymore.”

I will not swoon.

I will not swoon.

I will not swoon.

***

“Did you put the note on the door?” Aiden whispered from his hiding place under the wood table.

I was hiding behind the couch. “I did. Don’t worry, he’ll see it.”

“You put the gun where he can see it too?”

“Yup.”

He giggled. “Do you think he’ll be angry?”

“Angry? Psshhh, he’ll have the best time of his life. He’ll thank us, trust me.”

After Adam left, I stayed with Aiden. An hour later when Dan the Man joined us, we convinced him to go out on a scavenger hunt for us. You know, so he could get the necessary things for a fun movie night: pizza, candy, snacks, M&Ms, burgers…the list went on and on. As soon as he was out the door—and I swear I saw a small smile playing on his lips—we hatched a plan to get back at Adam for letting Adeline take him away to New York. I knew he’d had nothing to do with it, but still, we were out for revenge—and a little bit of fun—so it was as good an excuse as any in our book. More importantly, it put the biggest smile on Aiden’s face when I first came up with it.

We called to find out when Adam would be home and left a note on the door.

Are you ready to cry all the tears, Adam Connor?

Catch us if you can!

PS. Just because we felt sorry for you, you can use the gun. It’s loaded.

Right under the note, there was the smallest size Nerf Super Soaker gun you can find. Aiden and I had the bigger ones. In fact, they were so big that Aiden kept having trouble holding his up.

We heard the door open and then Adam’s voice trickled in.

“Aiden?”

I held my finger up to my mouth and warned Aiden to stay quiet. He nodded, but couldn’t hold back the small giggle that escaped his lips. He looked so damn happy. I grinned at him and got ready to blast Adam with freezing cold water.

I tilted my head slightly up, only enough that my eyes and forehead were visible, and saw him walk into the big opening between the kitchen and the living room where we were hiding as quietly as we could.

“Dan? Anybody home?”

Another giggle from Aiden.

I checked again and saw that he hadn’t taken our game seriously: the gun was just hanging in his hand with the note we had attached to the door. So be it. We had warned him.

He walked farther into the room, closer to us.

I got Aiden’s attention and held up one finger—our signal. Then I opened my palm and mouthed Go.

We stood up at the same time, exactly when Adam was standing in between us, and blasted him with water from both sides. As the first stream of cold water hit his shirt, he opened his mouth in shock. I started laughing and pumping the gun to hit him with more water.

Aiden’s giggling was uncontrollable as he hit his dad’s stomach with more water.

Adam’s shocked eyes jumped between his son and me, then he lifted his little gun—no pun intended—and started shooting water at his son as he advanced on him. Aiden squealed when the first hit found its target and ran outside. There was another loaded gun waiting for him near the lounge chairs. That left me alone with his father.

He lowered his gun and turned to face me.

Big mistake.

“What is this?” he asked as his hand smoothed his wet T-shirt. He lifted his hand and shook off some of the water. We’d gotten him good. My eyes followed his hand because, oh Lord, I could see the outline of his abs and those pecs…Jesus. What a glorious view. He took a step forward, and I took a step back.