Page 18 of This Time Around
Allie hesitated, then nodded. “Yep. Just a friend.”
“So you’re not sleeping with him?”
“Of course not,” she said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Hey, we’re putting it all out there, right?”
Allie shrugged and took the whipped cream from him. She fiddled with the nozzle. “Wade’s just a great friend. The two of us have zero chemistry.”
“I kinda noticed.”
Allie snorted. “Thanks.”
He shrugged and took another hit of whipped cream. “Figured we’re being open and honest and everything.”
She sighed. “He’s been an absolute godsend helping my parents navigate a potential film deal, so please don’t?—”
“Your parents have a film deal?”
Allie shook her head. “I talked them out of it. Wade and I did. It was a documentary about women in the prison system that a friend of mine from summer camp was trying to develop, but it never got off the ground.”
“Amy?”
“Yes, Amy.” She couldn’t believe he remembered her summer camp bestie’s name, much less her profession. “She’s an assistant producer now, and I’m sure she would have done a great job. But it would have caused more problems for my parents. I’m glad Wade was able to convince them of that.”
A tiny muscle ticked in Jack’s jaw. “Good ol’ Wade to the rescue.”
Allie glared at him, though she wasn’t actually annoyed. Mostly just ready to move on with the conversation. “So who is Lacey, anyway?”
He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You told me last night that you didn’t care.”
“I don’t,” she said, pretty sure that was true.
“She’s not my girlfriend, like I said.”
“That’s fine.” Allie shrugged with as much nonchalance as she could muster. “It’s really none of my?—”
“But that’s because she doesn’t want anything serious, so we’ve had a friends-with-benefits thing going for about a year now, which is obviously something I’m not willing to explain to my daughter.”
Allie cleared her throat and nodded, loathe to admit how much it annoyed her to think of Jack having sex with some leggy blonde whose casual attitudes about sex probably meant she was amazing at it. Really, it meant nothing to Allie. Nothing at all.
“So you’ve moved to Portland.” She wasn’t sure if she meant it as a subject change or a question about whether the friends-with-benefits thing would endure a six-hundred-mile move.
“Yep. The rest of my team will be making the move over the next several weeks, but I’ve already started getting the company up and running in its new location. And we visited Paige’s new school yesterday, so she’ll start next week.”
“It’s so strange seeing you as a dad,” she admitted, looking down at her lap again. “I guess I didn’t expect that.”
He laughed and took another hit of whipped cream. “Neither did I. Wasn’t exactly planned, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh.” Allie kept her expression guarded, not sure if that tidbit of information made her feel better or worse.
“But I love being a father. She’s the best damn thing that ever happened to me. Gave me a reason to be a better guy than I had been.” He cleared his throat and set the whipped cream down. “Enough about me. You said your grandma left you the bed and breakfast?”
Allie nodded and took a shaky breath. “Yes. My grandparents started it back in 1949. It used to get written up in all kinds of travel books.”
“I remember it. Yellow, right? With those fancy arch-top plantation shutters you always loved. And there was that huge table they always bragged about importing from France or Italy or someplace like that.”
Allie nodded, surprised he’d remembered any of that. “Right. Only it’s not actually functioning as a B&B now. Just a home for about six hundred mutant-toed cats.”
