Page 99 of Single-Minded
“Your guys are trying to get the roof on the Adler addition before the next round of storms. They started thirty minutes early today.”
“Good to know. Supposed to be clear till tomorrow night?”
“That’s what they’re saying,” he answered as he stood at his desk, gathering papers and picking up his tablet. “Hey, the coffee shop opened today. You want to head there and get a cup of joe while we discuss business?”
Damn. I’d seen on the Tattler app that today was Presley’s soft opening, but my plan had been to stay far away from The Bean Counter.
“I’m not so sure I’d be welcome there,” I said on a defeated exhale. It killed me to admit that out loud, but if I didn’t put it out there today, I suspected it’d keep coming up.
Levi, who wore a Dawson Construction ball cap as he did close to three hundred sixty-five days a year, looked up from his desk and tilted his head at me. “What the hell, Aldridge?”
I sat down heavily, figuring it was time to come clean. I wasn’t worried about the job aspect. I just did not want to revisit how much I’d fucked up in my personal life.
My boss watched me closely as he approached the round meeting table and sat across from me. “I suspected you had something going on with her,” he said.
“Not the night of the wedding. It started after that.”
“Not gonna lie,” Levi said with a half grin. “I can see how that could happen. She’s quite a force of nature and looks good while she’s at it.”
Levi was nearing forty, heterosexual, single, and had eyes, so his observation didn’t surprise me.
I merely nodded, unable to find it in me to smile back.
His grin disappeared as he watched me. “Your face tells me it wasn’t just a night or two of fun.”
“It was supposed to be a night or two of fun.”
“She hurt you in the end?”
I scoffed, not making eye contact. “You ready to get this meeting over with?”
“Not quite yet.” He leaned his elbows on the table, his attention fully on me. “You were a grouchy son of a bitch the week before your trip, even after you found out about the promotion and the raise. I’m finally putting two and two together.”
I scowled. He wasn’t the only one who’d told me I was being a dick that week. Plus the sad label from my daughters. I knew it was true, but I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of it.
“I fucked up. I hurt her,” I said. “She wanted more but I said no.”
He studied me so intently it was all I could do not to explode.
“Because of your girls,” he guessed. He knew my story. All the guys who’d worked here last year when April moved out knew my story. Understood my regret for getting my daughters hurt. “Except you’re hung up on her.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. The dude was spot on, but it sucked extra to hear it out loud. “I thought I could walk away and be okay with it.”
He blew out a breath. “Relationships are hard enough when it’s just two people trying to figure it out. You throw in three kids…” He shook his head. “Exponentially complicated. I don’t have any kids, and I sure as hell don’t have a gleaming track record with relationships, but I know my brother, Max, had a hard time letting Harper in because he was worried about his son.”
“They seem to be doing okay,” I said, remembering how happy Danny had been at Max and Harper’s reception.
“But you don’t think it would be okay to invite Presley into your daughters’ lives?”
I braced my elbows on the table and ran my hands over my face, feeling so damn tired, as if I hadn’t slept for a month. “My history with relationships says inviting her into our life would get my daughters hurt again in the end.”
“How do you figure? Because April didn’t work out?”
“April. Flora. I rushed in with both of them, and you know where it got me.”
“I also knew April and Flora well enough to say with confidence there were reasons they didn’t stick, and those reasons weren’t because of you.”
“How do you figure?”
