Page 76 of RomeAntically Challenged
“When did that start?” He’d bet the second he said, “I brought pie,” but she claimed her whole soccer team was doing a cleanse.
He looked at Levi for confirmation, since he was the soccer coach, and Levi lifted a confused hand, neither affirming nor denying that such a cleanse was going on within his team.
Emmitt scratched his eyebrow with a raised middle finger, leaving no confusion as to his response, then looked back at the only person in the room who mattered right then.
“You’re right, you’re not little and I feel like I’m playing a catch-up here.” He considered what Annie would say in this situation and added, “Stick with me, and trust that I’m getting there, because there is nothing more important to me than you and your feelings.” He just wished there weren’t so many of them. “So if pie isn’t your thing, maybe after dinner we can go to the store and pick up something you can eat. It will give me a better idea of what kind of snacks you want for the sleepover.” Without waiting a beat, he turned to Les. “And what the hell are you doing here?”
“I was invited?” Les said, using the table to help him stand. Emmitt noticed the familiar grooves lining his father’s face, which had become deeper and more pronounced since he’d seen Les last.
“By who?”
“By me,” Paisley said, finally sparing him a glance. “And before you ask why, Grandpa’s here because it’s Friday, which is family dinner night. Do you have a problem with that?”
Fuck yeah, he did. Les was the walking, talking definition of a problem.
Emmitt met his old man’s gaze. “This is a problem between me and him.”
“We aren’t talking about you and him. We’re talking aboutmeandmygrandpa.”
“He’s right, sweetie,” Les said in a soft tone Emmitt hadn’t heard since his mom died, then walked over to place a comforting hand on Paisley’s shoulder. “Why don’t you let your dad and me talk about this. I don’t want to ruin dinner.”
“Youaren’t ruining anything, Grandpa,” Paisley said, her tone neither soft nor comforting. In fact, she was shooting Emmitt aneat shit and choke on itlook that impliedhewas the problem. “Anyone who thinks differently can leave, especially since my other dads don’t have a problem with it.” She turned to her “other dads,” and asked, “Right?”
The Bobbsey Twins nodded, Paisley continued to glare, and Les—wanting to be the bigger fucking person for the first time since Nixon took office—said, “It’s a little more complicated than that, sweetie. So, I think I’m going to check if there’s any of those ice pops you bought still left in my freezer.”
“Still the same old Les. Stir things up, then go on your merry way, completely oblivious to what you’ve done,” Emmitt accused.
“I know what I’ve done, son,” Les said. “But Michelle had a strict ‘no swearing’ policy in the house, so I think it’s best I excuse myself. Thanks for the dinner.”
“Grandpa...” Paisley jumped up, her voice animated and her face full of concern. Emmitt’s heart tore in two when his daughter wrapped her arms about Les’s neck and begged, “Don’t go. We haven’t even gotten to our game of chess.”
“I know,” Les said, giving her a kiss on the crown on her head. “But I’m a little tuckered out tonight. How about tomorrow? You and me, chess on the bluff?”
She gave a small nod and, just as she used to do to Emmitt when she was six, Paisley went up on her tiptoes and kissed her grandpa’s cheek. “Tomorrow. Promise?”
Les gave her a wink, then did what he did best, went on his merry way.
“Do you have a problem with that?” she asked, her hip popped out, challenging him to a showdown of who could walk the bad side better.
What she didn’t know was, when it came to the bad side, Emmitt was the founder, mayor, and ruler supreme. “Actually I do. Not that you reached out to him but that you invited him and didn’t give me a heads-up before I got here.”
“If anyone deserved a heads-up, then it was Grandpa,” Paisley said. “Because you’re the new face at dinner, not him.”
Everything inside Emmitt slowed down until every breath, every movement, every sound in the room faded away and all he was left with was the cold hard truth. He wasn’t the third wheel in the trio of dads; he was the guy no one wanted at the party but felt obligated to invite. He was the guy who wasn’t important enough to inform that his daughter was spending time with the man who’d made Emmitt’s childhood one giant disappointment.
A man Emmitt was so desperate to escape that the day he turned eighteen, he went down to the courthouse and changed his last name to his mother’s maiden name.
That—that—was who Levi and Gray had invited to dinner, and they hadn’t even bothered to clear it with him. He didn’t expect them to run everything by him. But this required his sign-off.
“You knew, man,” he said to his supposed best friend, Levi. “You knew what he put me through, and you didn’t think that, hey, maybe I should give Emmitt a call before we invite Les to all the family get-togethers?” He set the pie down for fear he’d chuck it at one of the idiots across from him. “Not all the family get-togethers, just the ones I’m not at.”
“It’s not like that,” Levi tried to explain, but there was no explanation in the world that could justify what they’d done.
“Then tell me what it’s like. Because I’m starting to connect the dots, and the picture it’s making is pretty damn ugly.”
“It isn’t his fault,” Paisley said, standing in front of Levi, as if he was her main concern. “I’m the one who reached out to Grandpa. I’m the one who invited him to dinner. I found a picture of him when I was at your house, and Mom told me he was my grandpa. So one night when Owen was sleeping over, we decided to look him up online. He was living like a mile away, so the next morning we jumped on our bikes and rode to his house.”
And the blows kept coming.
