Page 80 of Truth or More Truth

“Dude? Did you just call me ‘dude’?”

“Sure did. Would you rather me call you ‘old man’?”

“Uh, no.” I pull up in front of her school. “Have a good day at school, pumpkin.”

Kelli shakes a finger in my face. “No. No pumpkin.”

“All right, dude.”

She laughs again and flings her arms around my neck. “You’re the silliest grumpy old man I know. Now, go home and call Melissa and tell her you’re going to fly her out here to meet me this weekend.”

“Not gonna happen.” I do want to see her, but hopefully I’ll be able to fly to Chicago for a couple days later this week. “See you after school.” Whitley’s mom offered to bring Kelli home after school every day this week, which is a great help. By next week, Opal should feel comfortable leaving Nanette long enough to make the twenty-minute round trip to go pick her up.

Kelli slams the door, waves at me through the window, and then dashes toward a group of girls a few dozen yards away.

I really don’t know how I managed to raise such a great kid. Actually, most of the credit goes to Nanette, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t done much to mess Kelli up, other than being out of town a lot. Oh, and let’s not forget getting into a car accident that nearly cost her mom her life. As I pull out of the school drive, I shake my head at myself. If I’m going to continue to move forward with my life, I need to start believing what everyone keeps telling me—the accident was in no way my fault.

When I get back home, I’m going to need to jump right back into work mode. Since some of my clients play for teams in the Eastern time zone, I’m typically up by five a.m. If I don’t have any urgent messages waiting for me, I’ll spend some time in my home gym before starting the work day. Today was not one of those days. Jimmie Zane is still acting like a child, which is why I’ll likely be heading back to Chicago this week. Not that I’m complaining much. I don’t really want to leave Kelli and Nanette again so soon after the hospital stay, but I want to make sure my client doesn’t do anything else to damage his budding career and, of course, I want to see Melissa.

MygirlfriendMelissa.It’s as weird for me to think that as it was for Kelli to say it. I’ve never had a girlfriend, which is bizarre for a man who has been married, but Nanette and I went straight from friendship to marriage. I didn’t date during my brief stint in high school, and even in college and law school, I never went on more than a handful of dates with any one woman. It didn’t help that I was a few years younger than my classmates, but I also was so busy working and studying that I didn’t have much time for anything else.

Granted, I haven’t even gone on one typical date with Melissa, and now I’m calling her my girlfriend. But I figure spending all that one-on-one time together and then choosing to date long-distance qualifies her for the position. Maybe I should ask her, though, before I introduce her to someone as my girlfriend and I find out she doesn’t feel we’re at that stage yet.

I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t know how to do this. Not only do I not know how to date as a single dad, I don’t really know how to date in general. Everything I know I learned thispast year from watching Ash and Randall navigate their own relationships. Neither of them did things the conventional way either, though. But maybe that’s always the case. Life and relationships don’t usually play out like movies and books suggest they will.

thirty-three

. . .

“I’m taking the red-eye tonight to Chicago,” Bobby tells me over the phone Wednesday evening. “I’ll be in meetings all day tomorrow through dinner. But I want to see you after that, if it’s not too late for you. I’ll be heading back home early Friday morning so I’ll be back by the time Kelli gets home from school, and I want Opal to be able to take the night off. She says she doesn’t mind the around-the-clock work since it’s hopefully only for a few weeks this time, but I don’t want her to burn out. She hasn’t left the house since Nanette came home Sunday other than to get some snacks Kelli was craving. The woman is a total pushover for that kid.”

My heart tumbles around in my chest, both at knowing I’ll be seeing Bobby in about twenty-four hours and from his dedication to his family and employee.

“I’ll be free whenever you are. I don’t care where or when.” Maybe I shouldn’t sound so eager or available, but I don’t want to play games with this man. He deserves to know where I stand and how I feel.

“Excellent.”

I wonder if his dimple is showing, and the mental image of his smiling face puts a grin on my own.

“I’ll be at the Drake,” he tells me. “Since I’m not going to be there even one full night, I’m camping out with Diego in his suite.He came back from the Dominican today and will be in the city for a couple weeks while he does some stuff with his foundation. Would it be too much trouble for you to meet me at the hotel? Or would you rather I come to you?”

“I’m happy to go downtown.”

“Great. How about you plan to get there by eight? You can hang out with your buddy Diego if I end up taking longer than expected at dinner.”

“Sounds great.”

“And if our little pal ends up being too much of a third wheel, we can head down to the hotel bar to get away from him.”

I chuckle. “I have a feeling we’ll be hitting that bar.” I hesitate only a second before adding, “I can’t wait to see you.”

“I can’t wait to kiss you.”

I burst out laughing. “Yeah, that, too.”

“How’s my favorite road trip buddy?” Diego wraps me in a bear hug the moment I step through the door into his hotel suite. Then he grabs me by the shoulders, holds me away from him, and looks me in the eye. “You good?” He waggles his eyebrows. “Ready to see your lover?”

I wriggle out of his grasp and swat him on the chest. “Don’t use that word. It squicks me out.” I move past him into the living area, which is exactly as ostentatious as I expected Diego’s home to be. The man likes to make a statement, and the statement here is “I miss the Caribbean, so I’m channeling that aesthetic, taking everything up a notch, and creating my own fancy tropical oasis in the middle of the Upper Midwest.” I wonder if Ruth Hamilton realizes what this man will do to her home if she allows him to move in.

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