“I promise nothing happened,” she continued, toying with her fork instead of looking at me. Even so, I knew she was telling the truth. “Jess talked me into going, because she thought that a guy I liked was going to be there.”
I set my fork down and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m really not sure I want to hear about this.”
“Oh, please. You were only three years older than I am now when you had me. Don’t act like you were in line for the priesthood.”
I snorted.
“Anyway, Jess ended up getting cozy with some random guy, and the guy I liked was kissing someone else. And I didn’t want to stick around, but Jess had picked me up at Mom’s, so I didn’t have my car. And I told Mom I was spending the night at Jess’s, which would have been kind of true, but I left out the whole party thing. So I couldn’t exactly call her. And before I knew it, I was calling Gracie.”
“I’m not mad about it. You did the right thing under the circumstances. Hell, I’d be afraid to call your mom and tell her myself.”
Emma smiled sympathetically. Even she could readily admit that Stephanie was not the most open-minded person in the world. When we were still husband and wife, living happily under the same roof, our daughter knew to come to me to handle sticky situations. And I hadn’t been available last weekend, so she’d selected the next best thing.
“I half expected Gracie to balk at the idea. But she immediately stopped what she was doing and came and got me.”
For some unknown reason, that statement brought color to her cheeks. While I was certain that Gracie’s sex video had been taped slightly before the phone call Emma referred to, I was equally sure that Gracie wouldn’t have mentioned that fact. Gracie operated without a filter, but she wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t wave her sexual prowess in front of my daughter like a flag. But the hair and makeup from the email had been on full display when I’d come over, so maybe Emma had picked up on context clues.
“Dad, I promise nothing happened. I didn’t drink anything. Gracie drank more at that party than I did, and that was just the sip she took before she dumped the beer on the guy’s head.”
“Excuse me?” I couldn’t stop my eyebrows from raising, betraying the cool exterior that I was trying to maintain.
Emma responded by clasping her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t fathomed Gracie not telling me her portion of the story. And maybe there wasn’t much to tell, but I was certainly intrigued.
“You’re grounded if you don’t tell me everything,” I threatened.
With a sigh, she began. “She was protecting your honor, really. When she got there, I was outside and this guy was standing with me. Not really bothering me, but I wasn’t interested. And Gracie comes walking up, looking like she always does - only ten times hotter - and he, well, he took notice.”
Of course some guy in his late teens or early twenties would drool over Gracie. She was a vision rolling out of bed in the morning, and perfection when she actually tended to her appearance. And Saturday night, she’d looked like she’d just walked off a movie set or something. Showing up at a kegger was asking for trouble. Trouble that she had obviously handled in her own unique way.
“And?” I probed.
“And he hit on her. She made me go to the car, but from what I gathered, she told him who she was and he asked her why she would date someone your age instead of him.”
A valid question. In fact, one I had asked myself many times. One that had yet to be sufficiently answered.
“She loves you, Dad.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. Gracie said that. Everyone around me said that. But I still couldn’t wrap my head around the reality of it all.
“I love her too,” I said unnecessarily. Of course everyone already knew that as well.
“So what are you two so scared of?”
I shrugged.
“She’s not Mom and you know it. You can’t let what happened in the past cloud your judgment and keep you from making your own future. You can’t give up on this before it’s really started. And that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re taking all of your fears and emblazoning them upon this relationship. They don’t belong there.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, leaning back in my seat so that the front two legs of the chair went airborne. Could I really take advice from my daughter, who as far as I knew had never had a boyfriend before? What she said certainly sounded good, and she was on a roll.
Hell, I was only one and a half relationships ahead of her in that department. And given my track record so far, it was debatable that I knew what the hell I was talking about anyway. In fact, I was nearly positive that I didn’t.
Yet the one parental bone left in my body responded on instinct, cutting down her theory. My mouth opened to form an objection which sounded halfhearted to my own ears.
“Gracie and I agreed that this works for us. We’re not going to dwell on the semantics of things. We just are what we are. And things are going good. Why question it now?”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Dad,” she protested, “do you honestly think that’s what she really wants?”
“I heard the words come right from her lips. She doesn’t want a ring, or marriage, or kids.”
Emma’s face scrunched up in contemplation. “Okay. I’ll give you the kids part. But the rest? I think you’re mistaken. She’s head over heels for you. You can keep telling yourself that this is just a fling, but it’s not. She’s in it for the long haul, whether either one of you wants to admit it or not.”
“And suddenly you’re an expert on matters of the heart?”
“I’m more of an expert on women than you are.”
“You didn’t - talk - about us, did you? When you spent the night at her place?”
“No.” Her face reddened. An admission of guilt, even if her angelic voice declared otherwise. She knew something, but what it was remained unsaid. Too often her mother and I had put her in a similar position. From experience, I knew she wouldn’t betray a confidence. But since she now couldn’t look me straight in the eye, I wondered how much she was aware of.
Awkward discussion over for the moment, we both picked at our dinner in companionable silence. Emma finished first, rising from the secondhand table I’d picked up at a yard sale and gesturing for my plate. I handed it over, watching as she dutifully took it over to the sink. She washed, rinsed and dried all of the dirty dishes while I remained in place, wondering what she was waiting for me to do.
Maybe I should act like a father for a moment instead of her friend. Sometimes it was difficult to believe that she was only in high school. She frequently acted older than I did. Perhaps a result of my parenting skills, but likely in spite of them. Dredging up an appropriate topic, I cleared my throat.
“Have you been working on your college applications?”
While that question disturbed me on a whole other level, I would much rather talk about that subject instead of thinking about her considering my sex life. Even if Stephanie and I were still together, paying for tuition would have been a daunting task. Apart, the invoice would undoubtedly be the same and we’d both still be contributing, but now there were new expenses that were necessitated by the divorce. For instance, the check I cut to the landlord on a monthly basis would have been far more productive going to the college of her choice. But life was what it was, and there was no going back now.
“Yeah.” The answer sounded muffled, and I realized that for her, this wasn’t a safe topic either.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, auburn ponytail nearly hitting her in the face before it settled back against her neck.
“Emma,” I growled.
“I put in applications at a bunch of in-state schools,” she hedged.
“But?”
“But I think I’d rather go to school in Minnesota.”
A sticking point for Stephanie, but a non-issue for me. While my ex firmly believed that Emma needed to further her education w
ithin a relatively short driving distance, I was definitely of the opposite opinion. I also understood the draw to a state that many would not randomly select. As beautiful as Minnesota was, it also got damn cold there. Worse than Indiana, but the freezing temperatures and the snow were things that you learned to live with.
I knew first hand.
In a life that barely seemed real any more, the three of us had lived there as one tiny happy family. That’s where Stephanie and I both grew up and where my parents still remained. Emma’s grandparents on her mother’s side had both passed away, so it had been no skin off my then-wife’s back to apply for and obtain a rather well-paying job in the happening place of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Like she was escaping the memories that remained in our Minnesota home, eager to start anew. And I couldn’t fault her for wanting to better her career by any means necessary. Being the obedient puppy I had been back then, I would have followed Stephanie to the ends of the earth if she’d asked.
Northeastern Indiana wasn’t exactly the ends of the earth, but now it was home. Sure, when our relationship had deteriorated to the point of separation, it would have been the coward’s way out to run back home. Trust me, I’d seriously considered it. But realistically, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to leave Emma and selfishly traipse off ten hours away by car. Joint custody had always been in the cards, and I wasn’t the kind of parent to vanish right when my daughter needed me the most.
“I’m good with that,” I said easily, because I was.
The tension visibly released from her body, and she returned to the table in a much better mood. So much so that she came up behind my chair and wrapped her arms around my shoulders in a semblance of a hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered as she pulled away. She flopped down into the seat she’d just vacated, a smile on her lips.
“I take it your mother isn’t so open-minded?”
This prompted a laugh. “You haven’t heard?”
“I try not to talk to her if at all possible. Good thing you’re seventeen and not seven. It makes it much easier on me that you can transport yourself between us.”
Emma traced the ring of condensation left behind by her glass with her finger. Driver’s license or not, there were some aspects of the divorce that were awkward. She hated conflict in her personal life as much as I did, and tried not to pick one of us over the other. So for her to speak ill of her mother - which I knew she was dying to do - was difficult. And she was attempting to phrase things as diplomatically as possible.
“Mom is not too happy. But I think she’s resigned to the fact that it’s my decision. Which doesn’t mean that she’s not trying to force me into making the choice she wants for me.”
My turn to laugh. “Why does that not surprise me? Really, though, we’re talking about the beginning of the rest of your life. Don’t decide your next step because you think it will make your mom happy. Or me. Do what you feel you have to do.”
“You could always come with me,” she suggested with a raised eyebrow.
I raked my hand through my mass of unruly curls. Not that long ago, it would have been my pipe dream to do just that. Not to keep an eye on my college freshman daughter, but to get away from this place. To go back home and rid myself of Stephanie completely. To not worry any longer about running into her by chance. To let her win this battle and claim the entire state of Indiana as her own.
But now things had changed, and Emma knew it. Her suggestion hadn’t been serious; it was intended to push me into admitting what we both saw was true. I couldn’t leave here - not now. Gracie had become everything to me. I couldn’t bear to say goodbye to the woman when I knew we’d being seeing each other within a twenty-four hour time period. Heading hundreds of miles northwest from her would completely break me. Possibly her as well.
Gracie was the kind of person who, months ago, I could have talked into taking an adventure with me and moving to Minnesota together. Bank teller jobs were a dime a dozen, and with her personality and experience she could land one with her eyes shut. But now that she was co-owner of a successful business, that option wasn’t even anywhere close to being on the table. Her home was here, and by default, so was mine.
Ironic that by following Stephanie here, my ex-wife had indirectly led me to Gracie.
“I can’t go with you,” I acknowledged. “You know why.”
“I do. But does she?”
I bit my lip, considering. Did Gracie know the depths of my feelings for her? Did she understand that I had only ever loved one other woman before and that I didn’t utter those words lightly? Did she realize that she was the best thing that had happened to me in ages?
For all the hot air that I blew early on about not wanting another relationship, my tune had changed considerably damn near overnight. I’d sworn up and down to Gracie that I’d never commit, that I didn’t want another marriage. Yet here I was, fantasizing about living with her multiple states away and not even batting an eyelash. The stance on marriage hadn’t changed; marriages failed. What I had with her had the potential to be much more permanent, something that a binding legal document wouldn’t validate any further.
“If you’re not sure,” Emma advised, “I think you know what you need to do about that.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Lauren
Patricia whisked Sadie from my arms practically the moment that she entered our house, beyond eager to get in her cuddle time with her granddaughter. Instead of rolling my eyes at my overbearing mother-in-law, I took it all in stride. She had a lot of lost time to make up for. If this was her way, so be it.
Since I had put the wheels in motion to make this all happen, now that it was in process I was taking a big step back. It wasn’t my place to interfere and probably never had been. So I watched from the sidelines as Matthew and his mother reconnected through their mutual love for Sadie.
I could feel it permeating the walls of the home. Healing had begun here, a small glimmer of hope that could potentially bloom into something permanent. A tentative agreement that needed to be nurtured. This reconciliation was so fragile, could be broken at any moment, and all parties involved were aware of the unspoken truth.
These visits made Matthew uncomfortable, something his mother could likely no longer tell, but which I could see written all over his face. He was afraid of making a misstep, of ruining everything he’d worked so hard to build. Of taking a huge risk, of sacrificing his relationship with Blake, and winding up with absolutely nothing in the end.
Alan Snyder was never mentioned. I had no clue if he knew of his wife’s visits or if she’d taken the brunt of his wrath and emerged victorious on the other side. I did know that she didn’t appear any worse for the wear: luxury car parked in our driveway, designer suit on her lithe frame, skin taut with cosmetic assistance. And if Matthew ever asked about his father, he didn’t share the news with me. Considering the major step we’d made in our own marriage, I doubted he’d keep something that crucial from me.
So I was in my usual position on the couch, perched as far away from Matthew, his mother and Sadie as I could possibly be without exiting the room, when the doorbell chimed. The three adult members of our group exchanged glances, wondering who would be wandering over on a Sunday afternoon unannounced.
I shrugged my shoulders and excused myself since I was the obvious choice to attend to our unexpected visitor. “Probably someone selling magazines or something,” I muttered. Which was supremely unlikely, since our house sat way back from the street, shrouded from view by quite a few trees. Our home wasn’t a destination for solicitors, nor was the area in general a haven for door to door sales.
When I opened the door, it didn’t exactly shock me to see Chris standing on the porch. Just the same, I instinctively pulled the massive wood panel as close to me as possible, lest anyone recognize him. Anyone being Patricia.
“It’s not a good time,” I warned him, my voice low to not draw attention.
“It’s great to see you,
too,” he joked.
“I mean it, Chris.”
“I know you do.” He grabbed my wrist and gently pulled me outside. “I have a key to your house, sweetheart. If you get locked out, I’ll let you back in.”
I relaxed slightly. Even in the worst of times in our tenuous relationship, I seriously doubted that he’d refuse to allow me access into my own home if he had the means and I didn’t. And during the course of this family drama, the ice between us had thawed. Especially now, when he could barely keep the grin off of his face.
“What’s up with you?” I asked.
“Who’s here?” he questioned at the exact same time. I let him go first, prompting him to continue with a lift of my eyebrows. “I’m assuming the Tesla I parked next to is not your new ride.”
“Uh, no. That would belong to our mother-in-law.”
His eyes grew large. Up close like this, I could appreciate their appeal. Like pools of milk chocolate, pulling me in. He roused me from my daydream, asking me to verify what I’d just told him. “Patricia’s here?”
“The last time I looked, there would only be one person who that title would apply to.”
“I’m sorry, Lauren. I’m just taken aback that you’ve actually admitted we have something in common. I’m flattered, really.”
I jabbed him in the ribs with my elbow. How Blake could stand to live with him, I didn’t know, but the man was growing on me. I’d never make him privy to that.
“Ow.” He rubbed his side with his hand, playing up his imagined injury to the hilt. I hadn’t even put any weight into it.
“Haven’t you heard of calling first? I figured a visit with us warranted a ten day waiting period. Or smoke signals. A carrier pigeon maybe.”
He cracked a grin, displaying a set of model perfect white teeth. “I think Gracie’s been rubbing off on you. I’m even more impressed.”
“It’s always been there, Chris. You just never noticed. Now what’s so important that it couldn’t wait to meet those requirements?”
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