Page 51 of Made for You
Contact from her father had apparently been getting more frequent. He’d called her from prison last summer and she’d answered. It’d been a two-minute conversation, and it’d taken her a week to shake it off. As far as I knew, he’d called twice since. I’d convinced myself he’d get lost if she just didn’t answer him, and I’d be able to kick the can of dealing with this particular headache. Granted, that willfully ignored that she had answered him, though minimally. Basically, I’d been living in a fantasyland that Carl would shrivel up and crawl back into the hole he came from.
We’d had a great day. Coffee and books. A few seconds with Nikki, obviously a benefit only to me since Ki didn’t get to talk to her, but still. We’d sat on the patio and read, even chatted a little. We’d played our nonsense game of giving awful names to fake new shops downtown—the winner beingYeastyfor a new bakery. She’d done some homework, and I’d done some yardwork and then, well, this.
“This is my new phone I’d like to call u and talk.”
But I couldn’t throw a hissy fit like I wanted. I couldn’t stomp my foot and say that it wasn’t fair and that I didn’t want to have to deal with her idiot father because that wouldn’t be helpful or instructive or anything other than self-serving. So, instead of doing any one of those or a hundred other things like I wanted, I steadied myself with all the professional skill at controlling my emotions and facial expressions I’d honed over the years and asked her, “What doyouthink?”
Her lips thinned. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“I get that, but this is your call, Ki. If you want to talk to him, you can. If you don’t, you don’t have to.” And I shouldn’t admit how much I wanted it to be the latter, but I did. This man had abandoned herandour mom, and there was no love lost between us. I’d communicated with him via my lawyer only long enough to have him sign his parental rights away, which he’d been more than happy to do.
He’d just gotten out of jail, after all, and wanted his fresh start. I didn’t understand why he wanted back into her life or what he’d say, and every protective instinct in me roared on high alert.
She exhaled an aggrieved breath and scrubbed her face. “I don’t know. I can’t tell if it’d be good or bad.”
Heart aching for her, I put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know the right answer here, and I wish I did. But I don’t think there’s a playbook for this. I think you go with your gut, and whatever it says is fine. But I think if you do call him or let him call you, I’d like to be there for it.”
Her brows raised like she was surprised and something else, then she nodded. “Okay. Can I think about it for a while? If I do, I want to just get it over with. I want to decide so the decision isn’t hanging over me.”
“Makes sense. Just let me know. I’ll be here.”
She snagged her phone and with a mumbled “Thanks, Boo,” she disappeared up the stairs.
Once she was out of sight, I ran a hand through my hair and loosed my own sigh. I had no sense of what she’d choose, but I prayed whatever she landed on would be the right thing. And I prayed Carl Caruthers wouldn’t be a bigger idiot than I already knew him to be if she decided to hear him out.
After that moment to collect myself, I pulled out my own phone. My plans for the evening had just changed, and I hoped Nikki would understand.
* * *
The evening air was cooling, and in a few weeks, it’d be downright cold. I relished that after spending so many years in North Carolina, where fall didn’t truly set in until well into November most years. The bourbon I sipped was smooth and oak-barrel-aged, and it’d done nothing to take the edge of disappointment and frustration off the day.
Kiley had tucked herself away under the guise of needing to do homework. I didn’t blame her for retreating into herself—she needed time to think. More than a small part of me had hoped she’d emerge for dinner and decide she didn’t want to talk to him, and we’d button that up with a response and be done with it.
But life wasn’t that simple. Feelings about our parents, especially messed-up ones like Carl, weren’t easy to identify much less act on, especially when he’d been all but nonexistent since before we’d left North Carolina.
Another sip of bourbon, the smooth smokey burn slipping over my tongue before I swallowed. The stars were glittering tonight, high enough in the darkened sky I should’ve gone inside. It’d grown cold, the clouds from the day drifting off and leaving the air crisp and tinged with fall. Despite the view, I stared into the liquid in my glass.
“How are you?”
My gaze lifted to see Nikki standing at the edge of the patio, arms tucked tight around her. The moon peeked over her shoulder and cast her in silhouette—still, she had the usual effect, something in me pulling taut and another something easing at the same time.
Words had failed me all day today, and they did so again now. I held out a hand to her.
She answered by approaching, accepting my weak offering, her warm, smooth palm connecting with my startlingly cool one. The fall air had soaked into my skin, and her warmth was like nestling next to a fire in the dead of winter.
“I’m sorry,” she said just above a whisper.
In North Carolina, there might still be crickets chirping and frogs talking outside. There’d still be humidity and enough buggy attention for anyone daring to be out of doors that I wouldn’t have sat on my porch there. Such a small thing, but sitting out here in the cool air, only the distant sounds of wildlife in the trees and the low hum of the house’s central heater clicking on and off occasionally, was its own kind of pay raise.
I’d called her earlier, after Kiley had showed me the text and more importantly, her hand. She’d kept her cards close about this until today—I’d seen underneath the shell she coated herself in. I’d seen the fissures racing along the surface and I’d known. I couldn’t leave her.
Even if she didn’t want me tonight, even if she had no intention of calling her dad in front of me, I had to be here, and I couldn’t be distracted. Nikki had understood, even without quite so much explanation, that this had to come before our much-anticipated date.
“I don’t know why it’s hitting me so hard.” My fingers wrapped around hers tight, and I bent to press my forehead into her hand. The spark between us, the feeling of elation and anticipation every time I saw her, had morphed into something like need and respite at once.
I needed her closer, but this was different.
“You love her. You’re worried for her.”
