Single Dad Seeks Juliet Page 27
I can’t entirely blame her. I don’t know that she’s ever seen me like this. Hell, I don’t know that I’ve ever been like this before.
“What, Chlo?” I ask, trying not to be short with her and failing miserably. That, of course, only makes my mood that much worse. I’m not the kind of guy who takes his shit out on every innocent bystander he encounters—I don’t want to be that guy. Right now, I just can’t seem to help it.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I clip. I almost laugh—derisively, of course—because even the simplest of things are now tainted with memories. And as much as I’d like not to be, I’m dangerously aware of the irony of using that word.
“Did…did something happen on your date the other night?”
I narrow my eyes, and she steps up to the edge of the island tentatively, resting her hands on the top of it.
“Why would you think that?”
“You’ve… Well, you’ve kind of been in a…” She swallows. “Bad mood ever since you got back from your date Sunday night.”
Back from my date. Sunday night. With…Christ, what was her name? Laura? Lauren?
Lucy? Yes, that’s it. Sweet, pretty Lucy. The woman who did absolutely nothing wrong yet didn’t have a chance in hell at keeping me at that bowling alley for very long after I witnessed Holley storm away from the table behind our lane with more than a little discomfort in her eyes. I tried to watch where she went—to be able to follow her—but between the crowd and Lucy asking me if I was okay, I lost track of her.
Seeing her like that and not being able to do anything about it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through, and I’ve been through some hard shit—foster care, BUD/S training, my time in the field as a SEAL, raising Chloe alone.
I don’t want anything about Holley to be another item on that list, but she didn’t give me a choice.
She shut me out—pushed me away—not the other way around.
And unfortunately for Lucy, instead of being a good guy and attempting to finish the date, I played the role of fucking coward—a role that doesn’t exactly come naturally to former SEAL.
I ended the night before we’d even finished our first game by feeding her a lie about there being an emergency with Chloe and needing to get home.
Yeah. I even involved my daughter in my bullshit.
Talk about a fucking prick of a move, right? Trust me, I am not proud of any of it.
Seeing Chloe standing there across from me, waiting for answers I don’t know how to give, just makes me feel that much worse.
“What’s going on, Dad?” Chloe asks again when I don’t offer any sort of comment on her painfully true observation. “What happened? I mean, it’s so obvious that something is going on with you since—”
I shake my head. “Chloe—”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll work itself out, Dad. The party is Friday, and I’m sure—”
I cut her off, slicing through the air with a chop of my arm. “No. No stupid fucking contest. No more Bachelor Anonymous. I’m done with the whole thing. I don’t need to go to the party. I want out of it.”
Her eyes widen. I’ve never been so careless with the way I speak to her before, and we both know it. Still, she powers on, her voice a whisper.
“Dad, be serious. You have to go.”
“No, Chloe, I don’t. I did this for you, and you know what? You were right. I needed to open myself up, but it didn’t work out. I didn’t find relationship potential or love in any of these women. Which means I don’t need to go put on some mockery of a show Friday night and act like I actually did.”
“I don’t believe you,” she says sternly, a tone I’ve never heard her use with me before. It seems we’re both sailing through new waters today.
My eyebrows pull together. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t believe you actually think you didn’t find love because of this thing. I mean, come on, Dad.”
“Chloe, I didn’t.”
She squints her eyes at me. “You’re so full of it.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve never lied to me in your life, so there’s no reason to start now unless you’re also lying to yourself.” She throws both hands up in the air. “Which you totally are!”
“Chloe.”
“Dad, be real with yourself and me,” she says, her voice a near whisper. “She fits us. She’s the perfect mix of right for you and right for me, and you know it. She’s fun and funny, and I don’t want to think about her not being around.”
Only one person comes to mind—Holley.
It’s no surprise she’s my first thought. She’s never really even left the center of any of them. She’s the reason I’m so angry. She’s the reason I stopped the date with Lucy abruptly when I looked back and didn’t see her sitting at the table anymore. She’s the reason I’m so goddamn heartsick I almost can’t breathe.
“Holley,” I say her name out loud.
I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours consumed by thoughts of her, but it’s the first time I’ve allowed myself to bring any of them into the light of day. I’ve been skating by, fueled mostly by the anger I derived from Holley’s ability to act like what happened between us was something we should ignore.
For me, it doesn’t even feel like I can.
I’ve almost called and texted her a thousand times, but the fact that she’s content to shove everything that happened between us aside makes it feel too much like a fool’s errand. A woman who leaves her own bed the morning after sleeping with you is almost definitely willing to avoid texts and phone calls.
“Of course, Holley!” Chloe shouts. “I mean, I think we both know the only reason you went on any of those dates was to be around her more, right?”
I’m both surprised and terrified at her keen observation. My beautiful daughter is so much more than I’ve even given her credit for.
All I can do is nod. I don’t even remember some of the other women’s names. It might make me a terrible person, but it’s the truth. Most of my dates with them, all I did was watch Holley, waiting for her to look up at me and meet my eyes.
I’ve been gone—completely invested in her since the moment I pulled her soaked-business-suit body out of the ocean and she yelled at me for saving her. It’s the whole reason I agreed to do the contest in the first place, though, I didn’t realize it at the time. Hindsight, as always, makes things so crystal clear.
Blind dates and newspaper articles aren’t my style. Not at all. But all of it meant spending more time with her. And deep down, I knew I wanted to know more.
Frankly, I can see now, I wanted to know everything about her stunning, stubborn, adorable, awkwardly cute, clumsy, and sexy-as-hell being.
“You have to go tell her!” she shouts so loud it makes my eardrums ring. “You need to go tell her how you feel!”
“It’s not that simple,” I mutter, and I’m not sure if it’s to her or myself.
“But it is that simple!” she persists, waving her arms around like a lunatic. “You have to go to the party Friday! You have to go and tell her how you feel and make a big romantic gesture. You have to!”
My heart spasms. “Chloe, sweetie…real life doesn’t work like a fairy tale. You don’t know the whole story or any of the details about what’s gone on—”
“Do you want to be with her?” she asks unabashedly.
I do the only thing I can. I answer honestly. “Yes.” It feels like I’ve carved a hole in my chest with a spoon when she’s not around. “But I don’t think she’s sure she wants to be with me. She’s…she’s avoiding me.”
“All the more reason to go to the party! You can go and tell her how you feel,” she all but demands with crazy, urging eyes. “Lay it all on the line. She’s doing my makeup beforehand, so I can promise you she’ll be there.”
“Wait…what?” My laugh is brittle with heartache, but it’s a laugh all the same. Only Holley and my daughter could somehow set up a
makeup date in the middle of all of this. “She’s doing your makeup?”
“Of course. She told me she would two weeks ago. She offered and I accepted, and it’s all planned. I’m meeting her at her house before the party.”
My chest tightens at the hope in her voice. It makes more sense now, that Holley agreed to the cosmetics date before everything…exploded…but it also means it might not be the kind of appointment she’s willing to keep. Sadness burns in my lungs as I try my best to deliver the blow softly. “Listen, kiddo, some things have happened since then—”
She shakes her head. “Holley made me a promise, and I know she’ll keep it.”
“Chlo—”
“No, Dad! You’re perfect for each other, and she’s perfect for us. I know it. So, you just be ready for the party Friday, okay? And I’ll make the plays I need to get her there.”
Hope wars inside me for the first time since my confrontation with Holley in the bowling alley Sunday. I know nothing is guaranteed but getting myself in a room with Holley seems like the first step to all of this. I know we’re right for each other—I just have to make her see it too.
“Do you really think it’ll be that easy?”
“Bet, Daddio. Team Brent is the ultimate. No cap.”
I sigh, my head falling back as Chloe laughs. I don’t even have to ask her before she clarifies. “It just means it’s the truth. Team Brent will defeat any opponent, anytime.”
I’m not sure I should put so much stock into what a teenage girl has to say, but here I am, ready to lay it all on the line in the name of love.
God, I sure hope she’s right.
Holley
Normally, my Friday mornings are reserved for positive thoughts about the upcoming weekend. They might even include a donut splurge from Dunkin’ on my way in to work.
But most Friday mornings don’t occur on the very same day where you’re supposed to attend a big reveal party and watch the man you can’t stop thinking about pick the woman he wants to pursue. Wants to fall in love with.
Needless to say, this Friday morning proved to be tragic.
I woke up in a fucking pitch-black mood, and that mood turned full-on doomsday when I checked my email to find several responses from readers who are simply so excited to find out who Bachelor Anonymous picks tonight!
Readers who have been excitedly following along with my articles on BA.
Readers who have read about Bianca and Rachel and Lydia and Elle and Lucy—otherwise known as Date Number Five when everything went up into a flaming dumpster fire. Also, by far the hardest article I had to write for this fucking assignment.
At least, emotionally. From a journalistic perspective, it was almost like I planned it—the last date in the list going so well. It was a perfect build in tempo, really, from the first lackluster date with Bianca to a final romp full of chemistry with Lucy.
Gloria was ecstatic when I turned it in on Tuesday morning, and the readers ate it up like McDonald’s hotcakes when it published on Wednesday.
After finishing it, however, I am a mere shell of the woman I once was.
Truthfully, I don’t even know how I managed to write anything about Jake’s date number five that didn’t give the vibe of a lonely single woman crying onto her keyboard. It was obviously the sheer strength of my experience with compartmentalized deadline-crunching that got me through.
But I found out this morning that you can only compartmentalize your emotions for so long until you literally snap and wake up in the worn leather seats of an American-made relic.
See, apparently, when you text your dad an emotional shitstorm of mental breakdown texts while he’s out in the middle of nowhere fishing, he takes it seriously.
At least, my dad did. I was two pints of ice cream deep, in a comforter-robe with My Best Friend’s Wedding playing on the TV last night when he rang the doorbell, threw a bag over my head—no fucking kidding—kidnap-tossed me into the back seat of his Buick, and drove back out into the wilderness, hysterical daughter in tow.
If it hadn’t been for the sound of his voice telling me to shush up and rest as I freaked out in the back seat, I might have really thought I was being freaking kidnapped.
Phil Fields is, evidently, a fucking lunatic.
By the time we made it here last night, I was passed out in the back seat. And that’s where I woke up this morning. My dad didn’t even try to move me.
“Dad—”
“Come on, kiddo.” He gestures to the water with a lift of his chin. “Cast it out there.”
“Dad, I really didn’t come to fish—”
“Put your line in the water, girl. That’s the rule of being in the boat.”
I sigh and flick the rod to cast my line out into the water. Truth be told, I don’t even think I put any bait on my hook. It doesn’t matter. Just by having the line in the water, my dad is apparently satisfied.
“Okay,” he says. “Now, talk.”
“I’ve made a mess, and I think you might be a bit of a lunatic.”
“No shit, darlin’. I already knew I had a few screws loose. And I kind of got the whole mess thing from the fifteen-minute phone call filled with snot and tears and God knows what else. But the answer is simple, Holl. You make a mess, you clean it up.”
I roll my eyes. “Not that kind of mess, Dad. Clorox wipes won’t do the trick.”
“Horseshit,” he snaps. “All messes are the same. They seem nearly impossible to tackle, but put in a little elbow grease and you’ll get ’em fixed up.”
“That didn’t work with Raleigh,” I contest with a sigh.
He snorts derisively almost before I can even finish my ex’s name. “That’s because Raleigh was a blowhard. Not a mess. You can’t fix blowhards, no matter how hard you try. They’ll always be whipping their dick out when they shouldn’t.”
“Dad!”
“Tell me it’s not the truth,” he challenges, and I shut my mouth.
“This is about that fella you’ve been following around, isn’t it?”
I turned surprised eyes in his direction, and he laughs. “A man can tell when an engine has been rebuilt, darlin’. You sound different, run smoother. It’s easy to spot if you know what to look for, and you’ve been cruising along just fine ever since he came into your life.”
Jake. I sigh. Just thinking his name spurs the deepest, most intense ache that starts from the pit of my stomach and doesn’t stop until it wraps itself around my heart.
God, I miss his teasing and his jokes and his laughs and his smiles. I miss the way he makes me feel and the way he makes everything so much more fun. So much better. I miss the way he challenges me and calms me and makes me feel things I’ve never felt before.
I just…miss him. So much.
You’re in love with him.
We haven’t spoken since Sunday night at the bowling alley, when I fucked everything up.
But over the past few days, he has never once left my mind, and I’ve typed—and then immediately deleted before hitting send—more text messages to him than I can even count. If only I knew how to move forward after actually sending any of them.
“So, what’s the problem?” my dad asks, pulling my attention back to the external. “Why’d you make a mess of it?”
“Because, Dad. It’s complicated. He’s the bachelor in my contest for the paper. He’s dating five other women who are all vying for his affection. I can’t just…just…”
“You can,” he interjects.
“I can’t.”
“Of course you can, girl. Ain’t no rules when it comes to love. Haven’t you heard that song? All’s fair in love and war.”
I nod, sinking my head into my hands. “Even so, I’ve messed it up beyond repair. He…well…something happened between us, and he wanted to talk about it, but I…well, I freaked out. I told him it was all a mistake.”
“So untell him.”
“Why do you think everything with men is so easy? So cut-and-dried?”
I guffaw. “If he feels the same way!”
“Only one way to find out.”
“I could find out the opposite is true. Maybe he completely regrets…everything with me. Imagine the heartache then!”
“Imagine the heartache of sittin’ on your asshole while he puts his ring on another woman’s goddamn finger.”
I scowl, and he nods, smiling. The bastard.
“Do you love him, Holley?”
When I don’t respond right away, he asks it again.
And then again.
And then again.
Until I finally shout my answer in frustration.
“Yes, okay! I love him!” I huff, and he sets down his rod before grabbing the end of mine and tossing it right into the water. Jesus Christ! I don’t really know much about fishing, but I know you’re not supposed to do that!
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Quiet,” he chastises, leaning into his knees. “I just sacrificed my favorite rod to get your attention, girl, so you better listen.”
I swallow hard.
“Real love—the kind I had with your momma—it doesn’t come around all the time. I don’t believe so much in the idea that there’s only one person out there for each of us, but I do think it’s a hell of a mission to find ’em. So, you can either sit out here on your ass with me and avoid dealin’ with your shit, or you can go back to that fella and tell him how you feel, consequences be damned.”
I chew on my lip as my stomach dances uproariously. Is it really that simple? And are those really my only two logical choices?
My dad waits patiently—possibly the most patiently Phil Fields has ever waited for anything.
When it hits me how right he is—how much the way I handle this could shape the rest of my life—I make a decision. The only decision.