Chapter Three

"Well, I want to see the game," Ryan told her, leaning on the open window of Sloane's truck.

"You never cared about seeing the games before. I signed him up for every other week, it's on my days, and none of our paperwork states I have to share my days with you. It's my week with him."

"Look, this is the deal. If you signed him up for sports on your days, then you can share those days with me and Naomi. Ruger deserves both of his parents cheering him on for sports."

"Both his parents, and your new wife?" she asked softly. Oh, she knew what this was. Ryan didn't care about being a father. He cared about how he looked to his parents and to his wife, and he liked to stir trouble and make sure she wasn't with anyone new. It was a control thing, not a good-parenting thing. He would be all over Naomi like always, in front of everyone, and most importantly to him, in front of Sloane. It was his way of rubbing it in her face.

"Look, can you sign him up for sports on your days? Or karate, or fishing classes, or whatever he wants to do? And I won't step on that time with you. Just let me have my custody days with him where it isn't the Ryan-and-Naomi show. I want it to be about Ruger."

"This is about Naomi. You have to get used to her, Sloane," Ryan said. "She's not going anywhere. This is the parenting team. You, me, and Naomi."

"I didn't sign up to be a co-parent with the woman you cheated on me with, Ryan."

"Well, when you find a man—which you never will because who would ever put up with your bullshit—you can bring him to the games. Until then, it's a three-person co-parenting team. Ruger loves Naomi. Just yesterday, he called her mom."

"Stop!" she belted out. "That's so messed up. She isn't his mom, and how dare you allow that kind of talk to happen. The only way he would ever say that is if the two of you are pushing for it. The ink isn't even dry on our divorce papers, Ryan. You bringing your mistress to the games on my parenting days is wrong. It's way too soon for him to even be meeting people we are dating."

"We aren't dating. Naomi and I are married now."

"Cool. How could I forget you did all of your dating while we were still married."

Ryan arched his eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest. "If you're trying to make me feel guilty for the way we ended, I don't. You deserved to figure out how replaceable you are."

It stung. Gah, it hurt! He always knew just the words to steal the breath from her lungs. She would repeat those awful words over and over to herself over the next few days, and he knew it. In a softer voice, she said, "What if we know the parents there? It's embarrassing, Ryan."

"For you." He pushed off her window and walked backward with his hands out. "Should've been a better partner, and I wouldn't have had to upgrade."

He turned and walked back to his Kia Soul, where Naomi was waiting, window down, watching Ryan's every move.

Pursing her lips against a grimace, she rolled up her window and thanked God she had decided to take her truck to the tint guy she'd known. The tint was so dark it wasn't even legal, but at least they couldn't see the exhaustion on her face as she rested her head against the headrest and stared at the mountains in front of her.

"Mom?" Ruger asked from his booster seat in the back.

"Yeah, buddy?" she asked.

"What's an upgrade?"

She pursed her lips and put her truck into drive. "I'll explain it to you later, buddy. How was your week with Dad?"

"Boring. I don't call Naomi my mom. You're my mom. Dad calls her that. I asked to go home, but he said no. I went to Grandma's house for four days. She gave me popsicles, so it was okay, but they wouldn't let me call you. I wanted to call you." His little voice had gone small at the end, and it hurt her heart.

Of course Ryan would try to convince her that Ruger was calling his new wife "mom." He had always been good at mental warfare.

"When you're older, we'll get you your own phone, and then you won't have to ask to call me, buddy."

"Can I just stay with you now?" His voice was so small, and it broke Sloane's heart. It wasn't only that she hadn't signed up to co-parent with Ryan's mistress. She hadn't signed up to raise a child in a split household at all. She had tried tirelessly to make that marriage work.

"We will both get used to this," she assured Ruger, but he went quiet in the back, and she got it. She didn't feel like she would ever get used to this either.

A year ago, she'd stupidly thought her life had been perfect. She'd built the perfect life for her baby, and now they were here, back in the town where Ryan and Naomi had decided to build a house. Not because it was her choice of where to live, but because Ryan had more income than her and he'd won in court. He'd gotten to choose where the custody boundaries were, and he'd dragged them back near Saratoga, where Naomi lived.

If she wanted parenting time with her son, Sloane had to move back.

And here she was, in a tiny two-bedroom apartment, overwhelmed trying to learn a new job, having her kid only half the time, and her cheating ex had everything handed to him on a silver platter.

Fuck boys.

"I'm hungry," Ruger said from the back seat.

Well, fuck boys…all except Ruger. "What are you hungry for?"

"Chicken nuggets."

Mood lightened, she laughed. "That's not shocking, son. How about we try tacos tonight?"

"Grandma and Grandpa let me have chicken nuggets every night."

She sighed. The people he'd been left with for the majority of Ryan's parenting week weren't even related to Ruger. They were Naomi's parents. Feeling defeated, Sloane pursed her lips and stared straight ahead at the road that was passing in a blur. That was the fun house. Of course they had allowed him only chicken nuggets. Ignore that Ryan had promised to try to get him to branch out with her.

"Ruger, I'm not going to compete with Dad and Naomi, okay? How about on our weeks together, we just do our own thing. Me and you. Your life with Dad and Naomi will have to be separate. I know it's hard, buddy, and confusing, but we really will adjust." Her therapist had promised.

Ruger didn't answer. When she checked the rearview mirror, he seemed to be thinking, so she kept trying. "Do you want to go on a mom-son date with me? Where it's just you and me, and we get back to you-and-me? We can make it a tradition. When I pick you up from Dad's, maybe we can do a little adventure and get back into the groove of things."

"Where would we go?" he asked.

Sloane dropped her gaze to the folded-up Moosey's coupon in her cupholder. "I went to a fun place a few days ago, and it has picnic tables, and different foods, and nice people…it even has shifters!"

In the rearview, Ruger's eyes lit up. "What kinds of shifters?"

A grin took her face. "Bears."

Ruger's little mouth plopped open. "I want to go there!"

Stupid Ryan and Naomi disappeared from her mind, and they were replaced by the promise of an adventure. She hadn't really known what to do with Ruger when they'd first moved here, because she'd forgotten about the fun of her hometown.

Ruger collected shifter cards. They were kind of like the basketball cards of her youth, but had pictures of the human sides on the front, and the animals on the back. He liked the hologram ones, so she'd spent a silly amount of money shopping for just the right ones for him over the last couple of years. The bears were his favorite. The bears and the boars, and all he'd wanted for Christmas was the collector's edition of Damon Daye's card, so she knew he had a soft spot for the dragons too.

He liked the monsters.

So had she.

"It'll be a drive, buddy, but we can try new foods, and you can climb on these rocks I saw next to the restaurant, and there is a playground."

"I want to go."

She checked the rearview, gauging his smile, and then nodded. "We're going then. We'll even stay up a little late tonight, okay?"

"Yeah!"

"They even have something called a mud pie."

"I love mud!"

She laughed, and it all came rushing back—her happiness.

God, she loved her son. She was a phantom when he was away from her, but when she was with him?

She was okay.