Page 3 of The Single Dad's Guide to Recreation

“Good morning, I’m Josh Harmon from Trede,” I say, holding out my hand. “We’re here to embed with your team. You know, assess the framework, perhaps do a minor re-org.”

She ignores me. “Elijah Ransom, I said, why are you here?”

“As Josh explained, to interface.” Eli bows at her, a gesture I’ve got to get him to stop using. Not only is it misplaced cultural appropriation, but people hate it. “Reduce the friction in the back end so we can optimize X-functionality.”

Her mouth twists into an even deeper frown. “Did you forget how to speak English?”

One of the other team members places a hand on her shoulder. “It took me a while to understand them too. Basically, we’re going to fix this place.”

She stares at the hand until they remove it. “Who the hell said you could waltz in here and tell me what to do?”

Groaning inwardly at the obvious communication breakdown, I clear my throat. “Actually, the mayor. And the town council.”

“For fuck’s sake,” she mutters.

An imposing, middle-aged woman sticks her head into the doorway. “Center’s opening in ten minutes, Leia. You’d best move this out of the foyer.”

“Fine. Into my office, now.” The woman called Leia steps out of the doorway and gestures down a hall behind her. As I pass, I hear her ask, “Can you handle the phones, Wanda?”

Wanda says something about needing to finish the Q2 books and tells Leia she has fifteen minutes.

As we all crowd into a tiny room stuffed to the gills with office equipment from the last century as well as bookshelves full of actual ring binders, I fully intend to stand closest to Leia, but my body has other ideas. It puts me right next to Avery. When the other Trede representatives squeeze in on her other side, I have to forcibly stop myself from touching her honey blond hair to find out if it’s as soft as it looks.

It’s official: my dry spell has gone on way too long. As I remind myself that there are two very good reasons why, things escalate further between Leia and Eli.

“Princess, you can’t mean what you’re saying,” Eli is saying.

Leia’s brown eyes practically shoot lasers at Eli. “I told you to never call me that again.”

“Uh-oh,” Avery breathes.

Leaning closer to her, I whisper, “Princess? Leia? As inStar Wars?”

She meets me halfway and whispers back. “Yep. It’s his old nickname for her.”

“First off, it’s Leia,” Leia snaps. “Or better yet, Ms. Blake.”

“She’s hated it ever since he left town,” Avery whispers.

“Blake? But your last name is Butts,” Eli says.

“Not anymore.” Leia lifts her chin defensively. “Obviously, I didn’t want my kids to have to endure the teasing I did in school, so I dropped it when I had the opportunity.”

“You have kids?” Eli’s squawks.

“Frankly, that’s none of your business,” Leia shoots back. “It ismybusiness to run Climax Parks and Rec, so any changes to the building or programming need to be run by me.”

Eli bows. Again. “Of course, of course. When we get to the front-end user flow—maybe even the A/B testing phase—your data sets will be invaluable. Perhaps we can even get you into a Mood Board meeting.”

One of our team members begins to chant paint colors, and Leia looks like she’s about to blow her top. I open my mouth to put a stop to it all, but before I can utter a word, Avery grabs my forearm, the sight of her plump bottom lip caught between her teeth rendering me speechless.

“You’d never know the two of them were an item in high school,” she murmurs.

“Shit,” I whisper. “Now everything makes sense.”

With Avery so close, my hormone-muddled brain may be having a hard time focusing on the problem at hand, but I can still put two and two together. Or maybe one and one is more like it. I’ve wondered why Eli chose to move Trede to a small town in Upstate New York after founding the startup accelerator in California. Seems like this “Princess Leia” had something to do with it.

“Why don’t you just build something new?” Leia asks. “Part of whatever fabulous building I hear you erected for… what’s your business called? Treed? Like a dog with a raccoon?”

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