“Of course.” His hand reached the dip of her back, his palm pressing against it.
“Possibly. Though not right away. I’d need to prepare Michael and Josh for me dating anybody.”
“Their dad is dating, right?” Cam asked. “Michael said something about that.”
“Did he tell you Niall is going to visit? To watch him play.”
“He might have said something.”
“Yeah, well I’m not holding my breath. Niall says a lot of stuff that he doesn’t follow through on. But for Michael’s sake, I hope he does. He misses his dad.”
“How about you?”
She tipped her head to the side. “What about me?”
“Do you miss him?” His voice was low.
She had to press her lips together to stop herself from laughing. “Oh god, no. I really don’t. Sometimes I’m wistful about the boys when they were babies, and the life we had in Kansas City, but I don’t miss Niall at all.” She looked down at her hands, inspecting her fingers. “Can I tell you something?” she whispered. “Something I’ve never told anybody else.”
His eyes flashed. “Yeah, you can tell me anything.”
She took a deep breath. “Do you know how I knew it was over?”
Cam blinked. “How?”
; “I took the boys away one weekend. Niall couldn’t join us because he was working. We stayed at an amusement park. Had so much fun without him, and the boys seemed to bloom. But it was that Sunday night, when we got back and the boys were in bed that I found out.”
“What did you find out?”
“Niall told me he’d met somebody else. That he was leaving me. I was getting into bed when he’d told me. And I realized that the photo I have of the boys on my bedside table had moved, so I asked him if he’d brought her to our house.”
“Had he?”
She nodded. “Yeah. And do you know what the first thing I thought was?”
“That you wanted to pull his balls off?”
Mia laughed. “No, though that would have been good, too. It was that I hadn’t cleaned the bedroom that week, and she’d slept on dirty sheets. Can you believe that? That’s how I knew we were over. I was more embarrassed about the state of my house than the fact my husband was leaving me?”
“Yeah, I can believe it. The mind does strange things. So why isn’t he around more? Doesn’t he want to see the boys?”
“I think he was going through a midlife crisis. I told you before, we got together young. Too young. When he left, I think he was pretending he was eighteen again and there was no place in his life for a teenager and an eight year old.”
“You think he got over his crisis? Is that why he wants to see Michael?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, and honestly, I don’t care. As long as he doesn’t hurt them, he’s entitled to see them. He’s their dad.”
“And if he wants to see you?” Cam murmured, two tiny lines appearing on his brow.
She lifted her gaze to his. “Are you asking if I want him back?”
The corner of his lip curled. “I guess I am.”
“No. I definitely don’t want him back. I think we were over long before he cheated, and I was just fighting against it. I don’t like the way he left, and I’m furious about what he did to our business, but I wouldn’t go back to him for any reason.”
Cam’s muscles relaxed as he breathed her in, her hair tickling his nose.