Delaney's POV:

Darkness had fallen on Jefferson by the time Brantley and I had wrangled the kids from all the playground equipment. While they had played, Brnatley and I had talked some more, getting to know things about the other. Amber was brought up from time to time but I didn't mind. In fact, I would find it odd if Brantley didn't talk about her given everything that he wanted to do in her honor. She had been such a big part of his life for so long, she was the mother of his children, and from what I;ve read in articles over the years, she had been his biggest champion, the one that encouraged him to be himself and not conform to whatever mold the music industry had wanted him to fit into.

But the most memorable part of the whole playdate was when Brantley would catch the kids not watching us and he would give me a quick kiss or when he would run his hand up my thigh almost indecently. I can't lie, the way his callused hands had felt on my thigh did things to me. And if I was the assertive woman that I wanted to be at times, I would have climbed in his lap, pressed my lips against his, and made out with him right there in the middle of the park. But since I wasnt that woman, since there were kids around, and since I didn't want to get slapped with an indecent exposure charge for basically riding him like a jock rides his horse, I'd behaved.

I'd even behaved when Brantley had walked me and the kids to my car and helped them inside. The memory of his kiss from earlier as he stood in the open driver's side door way came back to me, making me want to pull him to me and repeat the kiss but again... kids.

I was just passing the city limits of town when Chloe broke the silence in the SUV. "Mama, is Brantley going to be my new daddy?"

I looked at her little face in the rearview mirror before looking at Colton. They both had curious looks on their faces. "Why would you think that?" I asked.

"I saw you kiss him," said Chloe, her tone matter-of-factly.

"Just 'cause they kissed don't mean he's gonna be our daddy," said Colton.

"Colt's right, Bird." I said, using the nickname I'd had for her since she was little. When she was born, the chirping of birds was the only sound that could calm her when she was in that dreaded 'purple period of crying' that all kids went through.

"But in the movies, only mommies and daddies and people who are married kiss. 'Member? Erick and Ariel didn't kiss until they got married." argued Chloe, pulling on her argumentative ways. My only hope was that when she got older, she would use that skill and become a lawyer. "Plus, Hannah said when her mama and Mr. Daniel started kissing, they told her that they were getting married."

If you had asked me if I thought I would be having this conversation with my 7-year-old twins so soon after my divorce, I would have thought you were crazy. But here I was, getting ready to have to explain to them that two people didn't have to be married in order to kiss. The problem was, I would rather them believe that they had to be married in order to kiss because it would mean that I wouldn't have to worry about them doing other things when they got older.

"Bird, Bubba..." I sighed, "two people do not have to be married in order to kiss. You remember when Aunt Manda and Uncle Chase got together right? They were married and they kissed all the time."

"Is that how Aunt Manda got a baby in her belly?" This came from Chloe, making me wish that I could just abort this whole conversation. Because talking about kissing was one thing, telling my daughter how a baby was made was a whole other topic; one that I was nowhere near ready to even begin to explain –even if it was in kids terms that meant comparing Amanda's pregnancy to the Virgin Mary.

I couldn't help but laugh then, thinking about it had to be sacrilegious to compare Amanda and her sexual appetite with Chase to the Virgin Mary. I'm pretty sure that even though it was just a mental comparison, I was probably given a mark from the man upstairs that wouldn't come off without a whole hell of a lot of repenting.

Getting myself under control, I looked at the kids in the rearview mirror again, both of them waiting for me to give them some sort of answer. Not knowing what else to say, I just went with "you'll understand when you get older'. As far as answers went, it was one that I'd hated to get when I was their age and I knew that they hated it too. But what else was I supposed to do? Shit, why do kids always know how to ask awkward questions?

Unhappy with my response, both kids sat in silence the rest of the way back to my parents house. When we pulled into the driveway, I parked my SUV and was about to get out when Chloe broke the silence.

"Can I call daddy when we go in the house?"

"Absolutely, Bird." I said, hating that they felt they had to ask to talk to their father. But I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a little pissed about the fact that Alex hadn't called to talk to them since the move.

"That's 'cause he's under his tramp." Yep, you guessed it. This came from that voice in my head again. And I couldn't even argue it because she was more than likely right. He and I had gotten into more arguments over sex than I could count, every single one of them having been because one of the kids had woken up while he and I had been in the middle of it and I had wanted to stop in order to settle them down. That should have been a major red flag for me as far as Alex was concerned but I was blinded by love and thought that it was just the way men were wired.

Once inside the house, I found Alex's contact in my phone and connected the facetime request, passing the phone to Chloe and Colt. I made my way into the kitchen with the intent of fixing a glass of water but decided on one of the bottles of beer that daddy always had in there. It had been so long since I'd drank a Bud Heavy that I wasn't sure I would be able to get the thing down but I was damn sure about to try.

I had just popped the cap off the bottle when Chloe came into the kitchen where I was, giving me my phone. "Daddy didn't answer." The deflatedness in her tone broke my heart and pissed me off all at the same time. Honestly, it shouldn't have been a surprise to me that Alex didn't answer the call. He hardly ever answered my calls when we were married if he was at the track, so why would it be any different now that we weren't together?

"I'm so sorry, Bird." I replied, dropping to my knees so that I was more at her level. "Is there anyone else you want to talk to? How about Uncle Chase? Aunt Manda? Aunt Layla?"

"Can I call Brantley?"

"Bird, I–"

"Oh just let her call." said Daddy, startling me as he walked into the kitchen. "Pretty sure that boy is sitting at his house right now trying to think of a reason to call you since I heard you two were stealing kisses in the park."

"How the heck did you hear that?" I said, looking up at Daddy as he walked over to the refrigerator and grabbed himself another bottle of beer. He just gave me a knowing smile.

"I swear, daddy. For you to claim to not be part of the rumor mill or care about the things that it churns out, you sure seem to know everything that they know." I said as I found Brantley's contact and hit send, I chose facetime for personal reasons that I would never admit. Within seconds, I heard Brantley's gravelly voice come through the speaker, making the sad expression that was on Chloe's face disappear.

"Ladybug, when the rumor mill can talk about nothing but what's going on in my daughter's life, of course I'm going to learn everything there is to know."

Daddy made his way out of the kitchen then, not saying another word.

Chole was chatting with Brantley as I lifted the beer bottle to my lips, taking a long pull of the sudsy brew. The flavor exploded in my mouth, a reminder of the countless times that I raided daddy's beer stock to go to a field party somewhere. It was just as nasty as remembered but it took me right back to being sixteen all over again.

I laughed as I thought about it because aside from the fact that I had two kids, was divorced, there was so much that was the same as it had been when I was a teenager. I was sleeping in my old room –and it was like walking into an early 2000's time capsule. I was crushing on the same man that I had been crushing on back then, the only difference from then and now was that I knew Brantley was attracted to me as well. Hell, I was even still wearing some of the clothes I'd worn when I was a teenager. Case in point: the shorts I have on right now –the same ones that had caused me to do a little happy dance over the fact that I am thirty-four and can still wear clothes from when I was seventeen, even after having two kids that I thought had wrecked my body.

After taking another swing from my beer, I turned to Chloe as she sat at the kitchen counter doing her best to sing Brantley one her favorite songs. I don't know if it was a coincidence that she had chosen 'Kiss the girl' from the Little Mermaid or what given our conversation on the way home. All I knew was that it was too damn adorable when Brantley started singing it with her.

"Hey, Bird," I said, breaking into her song. "Where's Bubba?"

"His room." she said, not answering until she had finished the part of the song she had been singing. "He's mad that daddy ain't answer."

Without a word, I walked out of the kitchen and headed upstairs to Colt's room. Done up in tractors just like Mama and Daddy had known he would love, it was completely decked out in all things John Deere. I found Colt laying on the bed holding one of the tractors. I think it was a combine but it could have been a picker. I learned a long time ago to not try and guess them since it just made Colt mad that I didn't know the difference.

"You okay, Bubba?" I said, laying on the bed beside him.

"Daddy doesn't love us anymore." he said, tears pooling in his eyes as he spoke.

"What? No..." I said, wiping the tears that had escaped from his eyes. "Daddy adores you. He's probably just busy."

I'd said the words that I knew Colt would want to hear even if I didn't believe them. Because if the roles were reversed, if Chloe and Colt were with him now, I would have called them numerous times just to hear their voices. How he could miss their call, how he could go for days without talking to them, I didn't know. I just couldn't wrap my head around it.

"I want Brantley to be my daddy." Colt said.

I'm pretty sure my jaw was laying on the floor somewhere amongst the tractors at his words.

Before I could wrap my head around what Colt was saying, he continued. "Brantley answers my questions when I ask him something. He lets me play with his things." he said. "And he makes you smile, Mama."

"Colt, I– everything is going to be okay. Things will work out just like they are supposed to."

There was so much I wanted to say, so much I could say, but I stopped myself right there. Because I said all the things I wanted to say, it would cause Colt to think he had to choose sides between his father and I. But then again, Alex was already doing that by ignoring his childrens call.

The fact of the matter was, my 7-year-old was observant enough to know the difference that someone could make in your life. No, he might not understand the why's of it, but he knew that in the few days that we had been in Georgia, that the couple of times that Brantley had been around, I was different than I had been before coming here.

"Are you ready for bed? Or do you want to watch a movie?" I asked after a while.

"Can we watch Tarzan?"

"We sure can." I said, hugging my son tightly. "Now come on. Let's go run Bird off the phone, let you talk to Brantley for a minute since she begged to talk to him, and then the three of us can sit down, watch a movie, and eat some popcorn."