Page 54 of Pucking the Single Dad
After Brad delivered Finn to his playdate—a carefully supervised afternoon with the Hendersons—he found me in the living room, pretending to grade papers while actually staring at the same sentence for the twentieth time.
"Get your coat," he said abruptly.
I looked up, startled. "What?"
"You need... we need..." He ran his hand through his hair, frustration evident. "You've been dealing with everything—the Pattersons, this whole situation, us—and you need a break. We both do. Away from the house, away from... Just get your coat."
"Brad, we don't have to—"
"Please." The word came out rough, almost desperate. "Just trust me."
Twenty minutes later, we were driving through mountain roads toward Texas, the silence between us broken only by a playlist stuck on repeat—the same song for the third time, something about almost lovers that felt like being waterboarded with irony. His fingers drummed violently against the steering wheel as he stole glances at me, like I might evaporate if he didn't keep checking.
"That song again?" I finally said. "Really?"
His ears went nuclear. "Shuffle's broken."
"Brad, shuffle doesn't break in a way that plays one song on repeat unless—" The realization hit. "Oh my God. Did you make a playlist that's just the same song sixty times?"
"No." Beat. "Forty-seven times."
"That's psychotic."
"It helps me think."
"About what, your descent into madness?"
"You." The admission hung between us. "Us. This thing we're doing where we pretend it's still pretending even though we both know it's not."
My heart hammered, but before I could respond, he pulled into a parking lot. The sign read "Artisan Ice Cream Laboratory," and despite everything, I laughed.
"Ice cream? Really?"
"I researched unique date ideas," he admitted, then froze. "I mean, not date. This isn't—unless you want—"
"Brad." I touched his arm, feeling the tension there. "It's okay. Whatever this is, it's okay."
Inside, the workshop buzzed with couples wearing matching aprons, and the instructor automatically handed us "Team Sweetheart" name tags. Brad's expression was priceless—panic mixed with hope mixed with something that looked suspiciously like longing.
"We could leave," he offered halfheartedly.
"Don't you dare," I said, pinning the name tag to his chest with perhaps more contact than necessary. "You brought me here to make terrible ice cream, we're making terrible ice cream."
The competition brought out a side of Brad I'd only glimpsed—intensely focused but playful, his competitive nature channeled into perfecting flavor profiles. He studied temperature controls with scientific precision while I experimented with wild combinations, tossing in ingredients based on instinct rather than logic.
"Lavender doesn't go with cotton candy," he protested as I added another layer to our base.
"Says who? Have you tried it?"
"No, because I have functioning taste buds."
"Coward," I challenged, offering him a spoonful of our experimental mixture.
His expression as he tasted it was comedy gold—surprise, confusion, then grudging acceptance. "That's... actually not terrible."
"High praise from the culinary expert who once served Finn cereal for dinner three nights straight."
"That was strategic meal planning," he defended, but he was smiling now, really smiling, and my chest ached with how much I'd missed it.
