Page 62 of RomeAntically Challenged
“Yes.” He seemed absolute in his answer, but moments later added, “A cute boy? Absolutely. Some tool who’s old enough to shave and is looking to ‘Netflix and chill’ with my kid? No conversation needed. It’s a hard no.”
Yikes! That was a pretty extreme answer to a very benign question. She could only hope he hadn’t reacted this way with Paisley. If he had, it explained a lot.
“Let me guess, Sammy is the tool in question?”
“Fuck.” He hit the dash. “I know I sound like some naive parent, and I know I said I had this handled, but I really thought... no, I really believed she was being straight with me.” Emmitt ran a hand down his face. “How could I have not put this together sooner?” He patted his pants pockets, front then back. “Crap. I can’t remember where I put his address.”
He rechecked the front again before pulling out all kinds of napkins. Their roommate agreement he put on the dash. A bunch of receipts and gum wrappers. Those went on her floor. A business card with lipstick on it balanced on this thigh. Last, he pulled out a wadded-up piece of crepe paper.
“Here it is.” He punched the address into his phone and, lovely, they were being directed by what sounded like an Australian phone sex operator.
She motioned to a business card. “What’s that?”
He picked it up and studied it before slipping it into his pocket. “It’s from a woman I met at Paisley’s school.”
“Seriously, you’re using your kid to meet hookups.” Annie snatched the card and threw it out the window.
“First, I went to the school to be with my daughter. Second, Grace is on the dance committee and gave me her number. I didn’t even know she stuck it in here. And last, even if I had been into her, which I am not, Gray warned me off sleeping with the PTA moms.”
“You needed guidance in that?” Annie clicked on her blinker and turned toward the residential side of town, as the GPS instructed.
“God, that sounded awful,” he admitted.
“I was just giving you a hard time,” she said, and he chuckled. “So what exactly did Paisley say this afternoon?”
“We were at another dance committee meeting.” He glanced her way. “She comes bounding up all smiles andPlease Dad, asking if she could go to a friend’s house. And if it weren’t so dark in here you’d see the big fucking air quotes I put around the term ‘friend.’ So yeah... she sweetens the deal by giving me a hug, right there in front of God, Principal, and the student body, and I started thinking maybe I’m not the worst dad in the world.”
“What would you have said if you knew Sammy was a guy?” she asked quietly as she pulled off the main road into one of the newer developments.
“I would have told her no. Then I would have told her all the reasons why it was a no. And before you say it, I understand that is the exact wrong approach.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. I can hear your judgment. But the bottom line is, she didn’t ask, I didn’t say no, she lied. End of story.”
Extremely aware that the worried dad in her passenger seat was gripping the oh-shit handle as if it were “the tool’s” neck, she ventured cautiously with her next question. “Did she lie? Or did you make an assumption that she didn’t bother to correct?”
When his answer was to crack his neck from side to side, Annie pulled up to a red light and stopped before turning to face him. “Emmitt?”
Absolute silence.
“When you’re done plotting this poor kid’s death, you might want to think about that. Like when everyone in your family assumes you’re doing fine and you don’t correct them.”
He turned to her and—holy smokes—he looked ready to blow. One wrong word from either Paisley or her friend who was a boy and Emmitt would go off like a roman candle.
“I know where you’re going with this, and no, it’s not the same as me hiding my medical issues.”
And he was back to staring out the windshield.
“So you admit there’s a problem?”
“The light is green.”
“No one’s behind me, so we can wait here all night.”
He leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes. “There’s a problem.”
His raw honesty cracked through her carefully constructed walls and wrapped around her heart.
