Page 98 of RomeAntically Challenged
“You are. Just ask Annie. You’re Dad One and Gray’s Dad Two.”
Emmitt paused and his forehead crinkled. “Wait, like Thing One and Thing Two?”
Chapter 24
Emmitt was riding the bench—or the bleachers in this case.
It was the father-daughter dance, and this father had had exactly one dance with his daughter. More like a half of a dance.
He’d been right where he wanted to be, twirling his baby under the twinkle lights and holding back his tears as she looked up at him as if maybe, just for tonight, he was once again her prince who had ridden in and, with some epoxy, a blowtorch, and cascading glam lights strong-armed into the shape of giant stars, turned her life into a shimmering and glittery fairy tale.
Only instead of him playing the role of Prince Charming, that title belonged to some beanpole of a basketball player who was president of the junior class and therefore “working” the beverage stand. Emmitt wanted to point out that he needed to get his ass back behind the beverage table instead of “working” on Paisley. But Levi had yanked him back.
“A bottle of water,” Emmitt said. “The little prick showed me up with a bottle of water.”
“Being benched sucks, doesn’t it,” Gray said, still bitter that the sleepover was going down at Emmitt’s place next weekend.
“You’re more than welcome to come to the party,” Emmitt offered, noticing that the strobe light wasn’t making his head ache as much as he’d anticipated.
“Oh, to the party I’m paying for?” Gray folded his arms over his chest and glared. “Thanks.”
“Hey, are that kid’s hands on her butt, or is that a shadow,” Levi asked, squinting into the crush of people on the dance floor and pointing in the general direction of where Emmitt had last seen Paisley.
“Definitely her butt. Good thing for that kid, he’s not groping Paisley,” Gray said, taking Levi’s finger and repositioning it to the opposite side of the gym. “There’s Paisley, behind the dad trying to foxtrot his daughter around the room.”
“Ah, well then it’s some other dad’s problem.” Levi relaxed back, resting his elbows on the bleacher row behind them. “It was theway too short to be our kid’s dressthat confused me.”
“They’re all wearingtoo short to be kids’ dresses,” Gray said. “And Paisley was right, the foxtrot does look lame.”
“About the other girl,” Levi began.
“Which one?” they both said.
“The one I thought was P. What if her dad isn’t here or stepped out to take a call or something and he doesn’t know that some punk is getting all handsy with his daughter?”
“Rookie move if he went to take a leak and left his daughter in that dress around this many horny boys,” Emmitt said. “He should tough it out and stay dehydrated like the rest of us. I haven’t had even a sip of liquid in seven hours, because I came prepared.”
“Levi’s right,” Gray said. “If some guy was all over Paisley and one of us wasn’t there to set the punk straight, I’d hope another dad would step in.”
“I agree,” Emmitt said. “But I already threatened one teenager this month—someone else will have to do it.”
Levi sat forward. “I thought this was supposed to be a father-daughter dance. How did all these guys get in here?”
“According to the women in my Ladies Who Lunch group, the kids who didn’t use the wholemy sister invited me because we’re that closeexcuse to get in volunteered to help out.”
“Sneaky little shits,” Levi said, sending Emmitt a sidelong glance. “Why didn’t we think of that when we were kids?”
“They didn’t have a father-daughter dance back in the day.”
“Right, well, someone needs to fix this, because it creates a false sense of teen celibacy.”
“We’re meeting next week to discuss how to address it for next year,” Emmitt said, and both guys exchanged amused looks. “What? I felt it was time to get to know the other moms, so they’d feel comfortable with their kids hanging out at my place.”
“Just how well do you know these moms?” Gray asked in a tone that had Emmitt gritting his teeth.
“Well enough to know that they’re nice ladies, some of whom have shitty exes and sometimes they need a dad’s perspective on things.”
“How many of them are single?” Levi asked.
