Pretend I'm YoursA Single Dad Romance

by Vivian Wood

  “Yep. Most kids brought their report cards home and their parents put them on the fridge if they were good. Not my mother. She only put perfect grades on the fridge, and anything less than a 98 meant I was in serious trouble.” I sigh, closing the music box, and pick up the next photo in the stack. “Oh look! Here I am at four, trying to ride a bike.”

  I show him the photo, where I am very gravely staring at the camera, holding my pink bike by the handlebars.

  “Little or no expression seems to have been the norm in your family,” he says, smiling a little.

  “Definitely my mother’s influence. Here, I’m sure that there is one of her in this stack…” I say, flipping through the pictures. The dust suddenly gets to me, and I sneeze three timely in quick succession.

  The dogs appear as if summoned, and I make a face at them.

  “Bless you,” Charlie says.

  “Thanks. Oh, here’s a picture of my mother,” I say, digging a photo out of the stack. I hand it over.

  He looks at it for a second. “I can’t believe this is your mom. I guess I expected her to look like you.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “Yeah. Big Ruth was five foot nine and a lot heavier than I am. We didn’t have all that much in common, genetically or otherwise.”

  “Hmmm,” is all he says. Then, “I should’ve taken more photos of Sarah when she was a baby. I don’t think there are more than a handful from the last two years.”

  “It’s not too late to start,” I say, trying to help.

  For some reason, that earns me another half-smile from him.

  “What?” I say, puzzled.

  “Nothing,” he says, smothering more amusement.

  “Uh huh.” I roll my eyes.

  “Listen, I have to go. I have to get myself next door, before Sarah wakes up from her nap alone.”

  “Okay,” I say, setting the stack photos down. “Thanks for bringing this over.”

  He looks conflicted for a moment.

  “Do you, uh… do you have any interest in going to get some pie with me and Sarah tomorrow? I saw that they’re running a marionberry pie on special at Dot’s Diner, and I though you might be interested.”

  My eyebrows rise so fast that I feel like they might hit the ceiling.

  “Are you…” I start, gesturing. I don’t even know what I mean to say, exactly.

  “It’s not date,” he says firmly, shaking his head. “I just promised Sarah that we would go. It’s not a big deal.”

  Now I’m the one surpassing a grin. “I’d love to go.”

  “Yeah? Alright,” he says, nodding his head. He ruffles his dark hair. “Two o’clock okay with you?”

  “Actually, I have to work until four,” I say apologetically.

  “All right, four thirty, then.” He turns to leave, then pauses. “Meet you there?”

  I chuckle. “It’s a non-date.”

  He gives me half a smile, then walks out the door. I stand there for a moment, staring at the place he just occupied, wondering.

  What does a non-date really mean?

  Chapter Nine

  Charlie

  “Go?” Sarah asks, pointing at the ice cream shop as we pass it.

  As I walk up to the bright green facade of Dot’s Diner, I carry Sarah on my hip. “Not today. We’re meeting Larkin, remember?”

  “Lake! Lake!!” Sarah yells, right in my ear.

  “Yep,” I say absently, opening the chrome door of the diner. I look down the sparkly white formica countertop that runs the length of the restaurant. A waitress bustles around behind the countertop, turning to shout an order through a window into the kitchen. “We’re meeting Larkin for pie.”

  “Yum!!” Sarah says, her voice as loud as ever.

  A couple of diners turn around from their neat little red leather booths, staring at Sarah. Larkin isn’t here yet, so I go grab a booth in the far corner, away from the other customers.

  I set Sarah down on one side, looking around for a booster seat. Sarah immediately grabs the salt and pepper shakers off the white sparkly table, grinning.

  She spouts off a stream of nonsense, and I shush her.

  “Shh, we’re inside now. It’s time for inside voices,” I say. “Now move over.”

  She scoots in, and I sit down on the red leather banquette. It sighs as it takes my weight.

  “Daddy!” Sarah says. “Daddy, sugar?”

  She offers me the salt, and I take it. The waitress comes over, all decked out in a mint green waitress’s uniform, her hair a strange mixture a bright red and gray roots. If she’s under age eighty, I’ll eat my own shoes.

  She’s chewing gum very obviously, smacking it as she pulls out her notepad.

  “I’m Darlene,” she says, sounding like she just smoked a hundred cigarettes. “You need a seat for her?”

  I look over at Sarah. “Yeah. A booster seat, if you’ve got one.”

  “Sure, sure,” she says. “You want something to drink?”

  “A cup of coffee for me. And… a kids apple juice for her.”

  “Sure, sure,” she says, shuffling off.

  I see Larkin enter the diner, her blonde hair pinned back in a neat bun. She wears a light purple dress and a white cardigan, beaming when she sees us.

  “Hey!” she says to Sarah when she slides into the empty side. “What, no booster seat?”

  “Lakeeeeeeeeee!” Sarah screeches at the top of her lungs.

  Larkin and I both instinctively shush her, Larkin chuckling.

  “Hi Sarah,” she says, reaching in her purse and pulling out an origami crane. “Look what I brought for you. We made these today at the library.”

  Sarah takes it from Larkin’s open palm, looking beyond impressed with her gift.

  “What do you say to Larkin?” I ask her, giving her a nudge.

  “What?” Sarah asks.

  “Did you say thank you?”

  Sarah looks at Larkin. “Thank you!”

  The waitress returns with Sarah’s brown booster seat. “Here you go.”

  I accept it, standing up in order to get Sarah settled. It takes a minute, but eventually I get her seated in the chair, and I sit down.

  “Can I have an iced tea?” Larkin asks.

  “Sure,” the waitress says. “You want anything to eat?”

  “We all need pie,” I say. “Two pieces of the marionberry.”

  Darlene writes that down before disappearing again. Larkin smiles at Sarah, who is playing with the paper crane.

  “Bird!” Sarah says.

  “Yes, bird,” Larkin says. She looks at me. “Today was a cultural celebration of Japan at the library.”

  “Japan is on my list of places I want to visit,” I say, sitting back against the leather banquette. “Before Sarah came along, I used to visit a different foreign country every year.”

  Larkin smiles. “I imagine that it will be a few years before Sarah is ready to travel with you.”

  I nod. “Yeah. I don’t even want to think that far in the future.”

  The waitress brings our drinks. I thank her, passing the apple juice to Sarah before taking a sip of my steamy black coffee. It’s pretty decent coffee, and I make an appreciative sound.

  “So this is your big plan?” Larkin says, waving her hand at the window to indicate the town. “Moving to Pacific Pines, I mean.”

  I frown a bit. “Yeah, I guess. I…” I stop, taking a breath. “I had a lot of plans, before Britta died. Then my plans were all just… it seemed so pointless to try to plan things.”

  Her brows knit. “Right. Of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to question your plans for the future. It was just a passing remark.”

  “Right. I know,” I say, shaking my head. I smirk. “It’s too heavy of a topic for the afternoon, I think.”

  “Definitely,” she says, sipping her iced tea. “And yet… it seems to be the thing on my mind.”

  “What, the past?”

  “I guess I’ve just been thinking about how I didn’t
see myself coming back to Pacific Pines,” she says with a shrug.

  Darlene brings two slices of pie, and we both thank her. I pull my slice toward myself, using a spoon to cut off a little bite for Sarah. Sarah tastes it eagerly, excited.

  I glance up at Larkin, and find her looking at me and Sarah with an expectant look. I shrug.

  “I didn’t see myself here either. In my mind, I had the future all mapped out. Sarah would have a little brother coming soon, Britta would quit working and stay home with the kids. We’d buy a house in Portland and ride bikes and go on vacations to Tahoe.” I feed Sarah another bite of pie. “You know what they say. You want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.”

  Larkin bites her lip and looks down, toying with her straw.

  “Yeah. I can’t imagine…” she says, then trails off.

  “Well, let’s be glad that we’re both here, I guess.” I hold up my coffee mug to hers. She raises her pint glass, and we toast. She has a sad smile on her face.

  “Yeah. It’s important to remember that I have a ton of things that I love in my life. I get to work with books, which is really lucky. I love to smell the scent of new books, fresh out of the box. I get to do the New York Times crossword every week. I love my animals…”

  “It’s important to find things that you love about your life,” I concede. “I should probably do more of that.”

  Larkin gives me a look. “You haven’t actually tried the pie.”

  I take a bite of the pie, then make a face. “Ugh. This is so sweet. Sarah, why do you like this so much?”

  Sarah simply says, “Cake!”

  “Close enough,” I sigh. “It’s birthday pie.”

  Larkin looks at me, her eyes narrowing. “Whose birthday?”

  “Mine,” I admit.

  She slaps the table with a bang. “Today’s your birthday and you’re… what, celebrating with a bad slice of pie?”

  “Hey, at least I’m celebrating it at all,” I say. I point a finger at her. “I didn’t have to tell you.”

  She grins. “All right, you got me there. You have to at least let me pay, though.”

  I wave her off. “No way.”

  “Yes!” she insists. “Don’t make me tell the waitress that it’s your birthday. I will do it, without hesitation.”

  I turn to look at Darlene, who is very slowly bussing a booth at the other end of the diner. “Okay. On one condition.”

  Larkin grins. “What?”

  “That we just leave some cash on the table and get out of here. Sarah’s teeth are going to rot out of her head, otherwise.”

  She raises her brows. “Deal.”

  Larkin roots around in her purse and then drops a twenty dollar bill on the table. I clean Sarah’s hands off with a napkin, and then we all head outside.

  It’s still beautiful and sunny outside, almost seventy degrees. I jiggle Sarah on my hip, looking around.

  “We should walk to the park,” Larkin says, nodding in the opposite direction of the house. “It’s just ridiculously nice.”

  “I didn’t realize that there even was a park,” I say, shading my eyes. “Lead the way.”

  I follow Larkin out of the town square. As we walk, she talks about her job, especially about how much she loves working with kids. I mostly listen, looking around as we walk.

  There are a few blocks of residences with their neatly manicured lawns, and then suddenly a wooded area springs up. A small plaque declares that this is Winters Park.

  We take one of the trails cutting through the lightly wooded area. Sarah starts crying to be let down, so I put her on the ground, watching her closely. I spot a patch of trillium flowers growing, their distinctive three pointed white flowers bright against the green of their sepals.

  “Look, Sarah,” I say, pointing. “Look at the flowers.”

  “Fwower!” Sarah crows.

  “When I was a little girl, I used to come down to the woods and collect trillium,” Larkin says, crossing her arms and looking down as we walk. “My mother wouldn’t let me bring it in the house, so I made trillium wreaths and left them outside in the yard.”

  “Yeah?” I ask.

  I glance at her, wondering what it is about this girl that interests me. It’s not her job, or her house. It’s not her habits, or hobbies. And yet, every time I get a new scrap of information about her, I savor it.

  All the pieces that I have are a web of some kind, slowly knitting together to ensnare me. And that draws me in, slowly and inexorably, no matter what I do.

  “Mmmhm,” she nods. “I called them my trillion trillium. I thought I was really clever.”

  The path narrows, and soon I have to walk right next to Larkin, our hands brushing every once in a while as we go. Sarah is a few steps ahead; she stops to examine a small pile of rocks, unstacking and restacking them.

  I stop and wait. Larkin does too. She looks at me. Her brow furrows and she reaches up toward my face. For a heart-pounding moment, all I am aware of is my tongue in my mouth, and how small Larkin is beside me.

  “You have a piece of lint in your hair,” she says softly, her fingers touching my head briefly.

  She’s so close now, close enough that I can feel the warmth of her body against mine. I can smell a hint of her perfume, vanilla and a note of sandalwood.

  She looks up at me, opening her mouth, about to speak. I lean in, instinctively closing the gap between us, and kiss her. My lips touch hers, my eyes closing for a second.

  The contact is electric, spreading outward until I feel it in my arms, my hands, my chest.

  Yes, a voice urges me. Take what you want.

  It’s the same voice that told me to kiss Britta, I realize.

  Yanking back, I open my eyes.

  Britta. I forgot about Britta.

  “Shit,” I swear, staring down into her tawny eyes. What did I just do?

  “I—” She starts, but I cut her off.

  “No, that was… I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “I should go.”

  I move over to Sarah, picking her up. My mind is a complete fucking mess, my emotions about to overflow in two seconds. I just… I need to get the hell away from Larkin when it happens.

  “Wait!” Larkin calls, as I turn and start jogging away.

  But I don’t wait. All I can think of is Britta sitting in judgement of my actions today. Everything was fine…

  And then I had to go and kiss Larkin.

  I’m so fucking stupid.

  Sarah begins to wail as I hurry along the trail, crying the tears that weigh my soul down.

  Chapter Ten

  Larkin

  It’s been a week since I’ve seen Charlie, and I am pretty darn worked up about it. Downright angsty, I’d say. I pull a big file box out of my car, slamming the door.

  Maybe I can’t tell Charlie how I feel, but I sure can express my confusion by slamming this particular door. I’m not even sure how I feel, but I’m pretty mad at Charlie for practically sprinting away afterward.

  After a few days of silence from him, I got a little worried. I actually checked the mail slot in his door, as if that could tell me anything. All I found was a pile of unopened mail, which made me worry even more.

  I carry the box up the steps to my side, frowning as I dig in my purse for my keys. I get them out and start to unlock the door, when I hear a shout.

  “Lake! Lake!!” Sarah calls.

  I turn around to see Sarah scrambling up the steps on my side of the house. Charlie is a dozen steps behind her, his expression wary.

  So apparently he knows that disappearing for the better part of a week wasn’t kosher, I think.

  “Hey, Sarah,” I say, setting the box down.

  The dogs whine on the other side of the door, so I open it for them. They come out in an enthusiastic pack, Morris leading the way.

  “Doggie!!” Sarah says, her attention diverted from me. Morris and Zack are all over her, giving her a tongue bath and wagging their tails.

  I
look at Charlie as I pet Sadie, who wags her tail appreciatively. He comes right up to the porch, but stops there. His dark hair ruffles faintly in the wind, and he has some pretty bad dark circles under his eyes.

  “Hey,” he says. I look at him, some of my built up anger dissipating.

  “Hey back,” I say. “I haven’t seen you two in a while.”

  He makes a face, as if to say, I am aware.

  “Yeah, we had to go visit Britta’s mom, Helen.” He glances away.

  My brows arch. “She lives near here?”

  He shrugs a shoulder. “Close enough.”

  I want to ask how it went, to listen to him tell me a story. But I resist. If he wants space, he will get it in spades. Sarah, on the other hand…

  I look at her, laughing as she pets Morris. How could anyone feel anything but love for her?

  “Hey,” I say to get her attention. “I have something for you. Do you want it now?”

  “A present!!!” she declares. “Gimme!”

  I laugh. “Okay, I’ll go grab it.”

  I heft the filing box and head inside. Setting the box down on the coffee table, I pick up a slim volume, its cover dog-eared and tattered. It feels familiar in my hands; I ruffle through the pages without thought.

  I head back out to the front porch, where Sarah is waiting impatiently in the doorway. I kneel down beside her, showing her the yellowed cover.

  “This was my copy of The Little Prince,” I tell her, opening the book and flipping through a few pages. “Someone gave it to me when I was little. I thought maybe you would like to have it.”

  “Me,” Sarah says, nodding her head.

  “Here,” I say, trying to pass it to her. “You take it.”

  “No,” she says, a stubborn expression on her face. “Read me.”

  “Oh, I can’t,” I say. “I have to—”

  “You read!!” she yells. There’s a little vibrato in her voice that warns of tears.

  I look to Charlie, who has crossed his arms. He looks at me. “She needs a nap.”

  “I see that,” I say.

  Sarah starts to tear up, frustrated at my denial of her want. “Read! You read!”