Page 22 of The Single Dad's Guide to Recreation

“Eli told me today that you’re a widower. I’m sorry for your loss.” She tucks her hands in her back pockets. “Is that why you still wear the ring? Because you’re still grieving?”

“It’s not so much that, it’s… it’s just easier to wear it, because, I mean, I am…”How to say this?“Taken. By my kids.”

“Is… all of you taken?” Avery steps closer, and all I can focus on are her gray-blue eyes, the color of a gathering storm. Until she trails a finger over my jaw and every brain cell rushes to meet her touch. “I mean, what about this part?”

“That’s… available.” My throat’s somehow too full of my heart to get much sound out but when her mouth replaces her fingertip, I think it might explode.

“And this?”

Her lips skate to the spot between my jaw and my ear and I manage something like, “Yeah, um, that’s wide open too.”

Her warm breath hovers over the corner of my mouth as she whispers, “Is anyone using this these days?”

“You,” I growl, grasping her jaw in my hands and pulling her mouth to mine. “Just you.” A gentle brush of my lips over hers quickly morphs to a demand for more. To explore every inch of her mouth, inside and out. My hands can’t get enough of her hair, even silkier than I’d imagined. When we stumble into a tree, every hard place in me meets all her softness as I press her into its trunk.

I’d worry that it’s too much, but she pulls me even closer. I’m echoing her needy moans and whimpers with groans, and I can barely tell where she begins, and I end. The tolling of a bell resonates through our bodies. When it happens again, Avery freezes. On the third peal, she shoves me away and staggers back.

Eyes wild, she looks everywhere but at me. “I, uh, have to go.”

The next morning, I’m still reeling from that interrupted kiss. Confused about why Avery literally sprinted away from me, of course. But also thrown by how the kiss made me feel.

Before my kids were born, I kind of assumed that I was just the kind of person who didn’t feel anything deeply. That I was just an even-tempered guy. I’d always had plenty of friends and could always find something to like about pretty much every person I met. I figured it was a good thing that I didn’t suffer from heartbreak like other people or get into fights or get my feelings hurt.

I mean, I wondered what it must feel like to fall deeply in love, but it wasn’t like I missed something I’d never felt.

Until the moment I held Mabel in my arms. The rush of emotions totally blindsided me. I knew I’d die for her. Or kill for her. Her safety and happiness made all the things I’d valued before seem insignificant.

I’d hoped that Mabel might bring Lisa and me closer, that my feelings for my wife might deepen. That I was learning how to be in love. Instead, it was like Lisa and I traded places at that moment. Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to get back to work and I could barely make myself leave the house because I resented the time I had to be away from my daughter.

It happened all over again with Percy. The wallop of falling in love with my son even as the gap between my wife and me widened. As a result, I figured that while I am capable of some deep feelings, I’m just not made for romance.

Until last night.

The attraction between Avery and me has been obvious since the moment she dropped those boxes, revealing those big blue eyes, set so perfectly in her heart-shaped face, framed by hair that is as soft and inviting as the rest of her. I’ve loved watching her with the kids in Playgroup and admired her deft handling of squabbles, whether they’re between children or parents.

But the moment our lips met, something else happened.

Part instinctive, almost-animalistic urge, part soul-baring need, the drive to fuse my entire self with her was so strong, I don’t know what I would’ve done if that bell hadn’t startled me back to reality.

“Can I help you?”

Crashing down to earth all over again, it takes me a moment to figure out where I am. Which means I navigated my way to the mayor’s office completely on autopilot. Hopefully, no one was harmed in the process.

I smile at the receptionist looking at me like I’ve been staring off into space for far too long. “Um, yes. Sorry. I have an appointment. Josh Harmon from Trede?”

“Oh, yes of course, Mr. Harmon. I didn’t place you without the others. She’ll see you in a moment.”

Every other meeting with the mayor of Climax has included Eli and his usual entourage as well as myself, and I do try to melt into the background in order to most efficiently observe and strategize. From previous meetings I’ve determined that the mayor of Climax—a shrewd woman, perhaps battle-scarred from having to fight for every penny—obviously cares about the town she serves. Since I need to finalize a few things with the administration before we can move forward with the next phase of the Parks and Rec plan, I’m curious to see what it’ll be like to work with her one-on-one.

Moments later I’m sitting across from Martina Diaz, a woman who could be anywhere from forty to sixty. Diaz always looks like she expects to be disappointed, but when I make it clear that I’m here to get things done, her smile shifts from wary to complicit. In minutes, she’s connected me with the city employees and contractors with whom I’ll need to interface, and I have her okay to move forward with the next phase of the project.

As she’s walking me out, the clock bell tolls. Suddenly on fire from the memory of the last time it rang, I pull at the collar of my shirt before checking my watch, just to make sure that I won’t be late for my next meeting. What I see stops me in my tracks. “What is up with that clock, anyway? It’s ten twenty-two. Not the top of the hour or even the quarter.”

“You haven’t visited the gift shop?” Mayor Diaz asks, her Brooklyn accent making her out-of-context question sound like an accusation.

“Gift shop?” Before she can explain, I add, “Can’t the owner fix it?”

“Not unless they want to give the money back.”

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