Touchdown - Leslie North Page 0,4

their own.”

“I’m finding that out,” Maxwell said, reaching out to steady Kevin as he tried to scoot off the bench ledge. “And I appreciate it.”

Jill wanted to add more, but she wasn’t sure what else to say. When she’d gotten news about Maxwell receiving full custody of the kids, she could understand—she’d spent most of the kids’ lives out of the country—but there was something a little difficult about expressing exactly what she wanted from the situation.

Yes, she wanted to be involved, but she wanted to help with decisions. With raising them. With making sure that Wayne’s history and lineage was instilled in them, that they knew their Black side, even if they might grow up not remembering their parents. These points were far more important to her than anything else. Both she and Wayne had been only children, which meant she’d grown up with him practically like a brother—and nobody else could do that job for his kids except her.

“Hey, who’s feeling hungry?” Maxwell asked, checking his phone. The readout said 5:30 p.m. “We should grab dinner on the way back to my house.”

Jill looked down at the kids, who were fidgeting and bleary-eyed. “Did they have a nap today?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Maxwell said, waving her off. “The nanny said they slept a little.”

The warning signs of tired toddlers were accumulating, especially after this intense playground session. “They might get a little hard to handle,” she said. “Looks like they’re getting tired.”

“It’ll be quick,” he said. “Besides, it’s a place that Carmen and Wayne used to go. It might be nice.”

It was hard to argue with that. She nodded, smoothing down some of Shelley’s curls. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Thirty minutes later, the restaurant outing no longer sounded like a good idea. The table of five they’d received at the popular family diner was smack-dab in the middle of the restaurant. Normally, Jill wouldn’t care about table placement like that. But the toddlers were in a constant state of over-excitement, watching each new face flit by every thirty seconds as hosts led new arrivals to empty tables. What had started out as cute laughter had devolved into a complete refusal to pay attention to anything happening at the table—including eating food or drinking milk.

“Maybe they didn’t get their full nap today,” Maxwell murmured, more to himself than to her, after the fifth unwarranted shriek out of Kevin.

Jill couldn’t help but laugh. They’d both been working overtime trying to distract the kids and keep the noise to a minimum. But there was only so much they could do.

“That’s a possibility,” Jill said, stopping Cameron from turning his plate over for the third time. “But also, I think we’re outnumbered.”

“Completely outnumbered,” Maxwell agreed. To Kevin, he said, “Now won’t you please eat your chicken fingers?”

“Here, let’s try this,” Jill blurted, an idea coming to her. She loaded up her fork with a bite-size piece of chicken finger from Shelley’s plate and instead of offering it to Shelley, she made a big deal out of feeding Maxwell. “Look, kids. Auntie Jill is feeding Unka Mack, and nobody can stop me.”

The kids looked fascinated, and as soon as Shelley began loudly demanding her fork and food back, Jill teased her.

“Nope. This is mine, baby. Or should I say Maxwell’s?” She went slo-mo with the fork toward Maxwell’s mouth, and he made sure to keep his mouth open extra wide in anticipation of the food.

Shelley clapped her hands together loudly. “Mine! Mine!”

“Oh.” Jill straightened, sending a mock-confused look toward Maxwell. “Did you hear that? She said it’s hers.”

“Well, if it’s yours, Shelley, why don’t you eat it?” Maxwell asked.

Jill maneuvered the fork back toward Shelley’s mouth, airplane sounds and all, and the toddler ate it up quickly. Jill leaned toward Maxwell and high-fived him over top of Kevin’s head.

“That’s what I call teamwork,” Maxwell said, loading up some bites on a different fork for the other two, now that they both wanted to join their sister’s fun airplane-sound-aided dining experience.

“And now I see why they pay you the big bucks,” Jill said with a wink. The smile he sent her in response made her belly flip. It was hard not to be affected by this man’s brute handsomeness. There was something even hotter about a man willing to joke around while flanked with kids.

Besides, she recognized the dinner for what it was: an averted meltdown. All three kids quietly ate, as though noticing for the first time the fact that they had full plates