At her voice, Brad turned his head, Simon squirmed. And his elbow connected, point first, with Brad's mouth.
"Oops." Simon sucked in a snicker.
Brad dabbed at the little cut with the back of his hand. "You're going to pay for that," he said in a dangerous tone that had Zoe's fingers jerking on the tray.
In a blur, Brad was on his feet, and horrors flashed into her mind. She was already opening her mouth to shout, already moving forward to protect her son, when Brad hauled him up, hung him upside down, and had him howling with laughter again.
As her knees went weak and the muscles in her arms began to tremble, she set down the coffee tray with a clatter of dishes.
"Look, Mom! I'm upside down!"
"So I see. You're going to have to get right side up again and go brush your teeth."
"But can't I—" He broke off, as Moe licked his face.
"School night, Simon. Go on, get ready for bed. Then you can come out and say good night to Bradley."
Though he was watching Zoe now, Brad rotated Simon until the boy's feet hit the ground. "Get going. I'll give you a rematch soon."
"Sweet. When?"
"How about Friday night? You can come over, bring your mom along. We'll have dinner at my place, then suit up in the game room."
"All right! Can we, Mom?" Anticipating her answer, he flung his arms around her waist. "Don't say we'll see. Just say yes. Please!"
Her knees were still knocking. "Yes. Okay." "Thanks." He gave her a fierce hug. Whistling for the dog, he danced out of the room.
"You thought I was going to hit him." It was said with such complete astonishment that Zoe felt her stomach pitch.
"I just—you sounded so… I'm sorry. I know better."
"I don't make a habit of knocking kids around."
"Of course you don't. It was knee-jerk."
"Did somebody else hurt him? Were you involved with someone who hit him?"
"No. No," she repeated, struggling for calm now. "There's never been anyone who's paid him enough mind for that. And I'd like to see somebody try to raise a hand to him when I'm around."
Apparently satisfied by that, he nodded. "Okay. You can rest assured it won't be me."
"I insulted you. I don't like to insult anyone—well, not by mistake anyway. It was just that it happened so fast, and you sounded mad, and… your lip's bleeding."
"I was just messing with him. And as I recall, my own mother used to say if you start all that horseplay, somebody's going to get hurt." He tapped a finger on his sore lip. "You people are always right, aren't you?"
"And now you're trying to make me feel better." Following her instincts, she picked up a napkin from the tray. Without thinking, she put a tip of it in her mouth to dampen it, then dabbed it on his lip. "When I walked in just now and saw the two of you together, it was nice. You could've let him win, too, but you didn't. And that's nice, because I don't want him growing up thinking he should always win. You've got to know how to lose, too, and…"
She trailed off, looked down in mild horror at the cloth. She'd spat on it, for God's sake. "Lord." She crumpled the napkin in her hand. "That was stupid."
"No." Ridiculously touched, he took her hand. "That was sweet. So are you."
"Not really. Not especially. It stopped bleeding anyway. It might be a little sore for a bit."
"You forgot a step." He put a hand on her waist, slid it around to the base of her spine. "Aren't you supposed to kiss it and make it better?"
"It doesn't look so bad." In fact it looked beautiful. He had a beautiful mouth.
"Hurts," he murmured.