Page 10 of The Cheerleader is Off Limits

“Hmm.” Sloane’s eyes flit back to my license in her hand, then widen a little, look up into the air, and then back to it. She looks at me and then back at my license. “I’m sorry, math is really not my strong suit, and I did take two weed gummies to help me relax on the flight that may have just kicked in, but does this say you’re thirty-eight?” She blinks up at me, dumbfounded, and then back to the ID. “And thirty-nine like… in a few weeks?”

I take my license back from her and slide it back into my wallet and into my pocket. “No, it's a fake.”

“You’re almost forty?” she whispers, and her face looks as if this is the most shocking news she’s ever heard.

“Not for a year and some change. And you’ll get there too one day, thank you.” I huff.

“No, I… I just didn’t think you looked that age.” Her cheeks pinken, and I realize she’s actually embarrassed. “I was thinking late twenties or thirty at most. You’re really in shape, and when you said you were a football coach, I just assumed you were younger, and… you have really good skin. Do you do face masks?” She says all that in one breath, and I’m reminded of Jordan’s similar commentary.

Damn, Margot’s masks are doing a hell of a job.

“Sometimes with my niece, and that is not to be repeated.”

She giggles. “You also don’t talk like most forty?—”

“I am not forty.” I interrupt her,tryingto keep the exasperation out of my voice and give her a pointed glare.

“Right. I just meant my uncle is your age, and he’s so… old in comparison.”

“Maybe it’s because of my job. Being around teenagers all the time keeps me young, I guess. I also have two nieces and a nephew.”

“How old are they?”

I open my phone and hold it out for her so I can show her the picture of the four of us that was taken at one of SJ’s soccergames. “Margot is about to be seventeen,” I say, pointing at her. “That’s Isla, she’s seven, and Sawyer or SJ, he just turned eleven.”

“I love that they’re your lock screen. That’s really cute.” She beams before I set it to sleep.

“Isla actually made me do that, but…” I shrug. “I love those kids. My brother and their mom divorced a while back, and then two years ago, their mom died, so they’ve been through a lot. Until Ellie came around, they really only had their dad, so I tried to help as much as I could, and that has made me a very involved uncle,” I explain, doing my best not to bore her with the details of how my brother fell for his nanny and everything that came before.

“Wow. I’m sorry they went through that. That must have been really tough.”

“It was, but they’re okay. They all have their moments, but therapy has really worked for all of them.”

“Do you have kids?” she asks, and I shake my head.

“Do you?” I ask, and she blinks several times.

“Hell no. I can barely take care of myself.”

Remembering what it was like to be twenty-one and overly prepared with what felt like a lifetime supply of condoms on me at all times because the idea of children was my worst nightmare, I chuckle. “Some days, I feel the same.”

“Do you want them?”

I lean back in my chair. “Yeah. But I often wonder if it’s too late, you know?”

“It’s not too late. Men can have kids well into their like… eighties.” She scrunches her nose.

I give her a look of derision. “You know what I mean. Obviously, Ican. I just mean, if I have a child when I’m actually forty, then by the time they graduate, I’ll be almost sixty? I’m in great shape now, but they say things change in your forties,you know? What if he or she wants to play catch or something active, and I can’t keep up because I feel too old?” I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees, suddenly frustrated because I hadn’t meant to get into this headspace with a stranger, and now, I’m thinking about the very thing I didn’t want to talk to Ellie about. “And this all could be a moot point because I’d like to meet the right woman first, and I haven’t done that.”

I’ve just realized how long I’ve been rambling, and I almost don’t want to turn around and look at the twenty-one-year-old with the gorgeous blue eyes that probably haven’t seen much in her short life and can’t relate to anything I just said when I notice her hand moving toward me in my periphery. When I look down, I see a piece of wrapped candy in her hand.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Well… you’re not a cop.” She closes her hand, pulling it back toward her chest and holding her fist over her heart. Her eyes widen with what I believe to be mock worry, and she points at me. “You have to tell me if you’re a cop.”

“I’m pretty sure the whole point is you have to ask before you offer me drugs.” I chuckle before I reach for her hand to take the gummy from her.

“I just thought… It could help you relax a little. It’s a low dose.”