Page 63 of Situationship
“When Frank screwed me over, and I became a single parent, and I lost a business that’s been in my family for three generations, and I became a financially strapped single parent who can’t afford a professional nanny. If I’d known that she still hadn’t told you, I would have said something right away.” She took a breath. “Actually, in the spirit of honesty, I knew she wasn’t likely to tell you. I was just so desperate . . .” As difficult as it was, she met his gaze. “That’s not an excuse. I messed up. And my mess-up affected your family.”
She hadn’t just left her kids high and dry, but she’d left Colin in a pinch. “I’m so sorry.”
“How about we eliminate the phrase ‘I’m sorry’ from your vocabulary. You made a judgment call—it didn’t work out. That’s the definition of parenting.” His smile conveyed sympathy, and a good dose of something else, something warm and sexy that made her stomach flip. “I have been there many, many times so I know how hard it can be,” he said in that nonjudgy way of his, but this time she didn’t believe him. Maybe it was from a stressful day, but she had a feeling that whatever had him so off-kilter was on a much larger scale than his daughter’s secret personal assistant career.
“Again, thank you for today and next time I have Maddison babysit, I’ll check in with you first.”
“She wants to be an adult, so that’s her responsibility.” He sighed. “She’s saving up to buy a car.”
“I assumed she was saving up for her fancy East Coast school.”
His gaze narrowed. “Don’t remind me.”
He laced their fingers and tugged her closer, bringing her into his intimate zone. He smelled spicy and forbidden. When their gazes locked, the past and present collided.
“Thank you. If I couldn’t be here, then I’m glad you were.”
If he had an opinion on the subject, he didn’t say, just took his sweet time studying her face, her jawline—and her lips. His eyes were more hazel than green, and when he finally spoke his voice was rough. “When we couldn’t get ahold of you, Poppy showed me where Frank’s number was on the emergency contact list. Maddison called him but the number was disconnected.”
She blew out a nervous breath. She had hoped to go the rest of her life without having to explain to one more person about Frank’s cycle of entering rehab then escaping into the night.
The men in her life had a bad habit of lying to her—lies that hurt.
Although she’d learned a lot about addictions, and understood more about what Frank was going through, there were times where she couldn’t shake off the resentment. It would creep up on her late at night, when the girls were in bed, the house had settled, and the quiet became suffocating.
A complicated knot of guilt, disappointment, and embarrassment tightened in her stomach until she was afraid she’d be sick. “It’s part of the rules in rehab. No access to technology. He gets to call the girls twice a week from a pay phone.”
“Twice a week. That must be hard,” he said quietly.
“In the beginning, the girls used to ask about him all the time. Now, they rarely bring him up. I think they just got tired of hearing ‘Soon.’”
He moved closer, his voice dropping lower. “I meant you. It must be hard to be thrown into the deep end without anyone to hand you a safety vest.” She had opened her mouth to say she was fine, when he said, “Don’t do that. Don’t downplay how you feel. You have the right to feel sad, angry, frustrated.”
“How about surface-of-the-sun pissed off.”
He laughed. “That too.”
How was it that no one else in her life really understood what she was going through? Not her mom, not her friends, not Harley, and certainly not Frank. To him, the only thing that mattered was working on himself.
But Colin understood. Maybe it was because he’d gone through a similar situation or maybe it was because they knew each other inside and out—regardless of how much time had passed. Either way, she felt validated, and that was equally refreshing and touching.
“For the family of an addict, recovery is about forgiveness. For the addict, recovery is about introspection, putting their needs above all else,” she began. “And sometimes I feel awful for even thinking it but, every once in a while, I just want something to be about me. Not Teagan the mom or the spouse or Teagan the sister, not even Teagan the responsible party, but just plain old Teagan.”
“You could never be plain old anything. You are smart and determined and impressive as hell.”
Tears pricked her eyes. “I used to be back when I was Girl on Fire Teagan, who knew what she wanted and who she was. Now, I’m lucky if I get to watchThe Great British Bake-Offbefore bed. I guess I just want to be seen as more than my situation.”
“I see you.” He moved even closer, his voice dropping lower. “I always have. From the first ‘hello’ you had me. It was your understated boldness and quiet confidence that drew me in.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was a shy bookworm who had zero game.”
“You were the most incredible thing I’d ever seen.” He tugged her hands. “You still are.”
And wasn’t that the most romantic thing she’d ever heard. It left her speechless, her heart beating wildly. “I had a crush on you that first night when you caught me on the roof and asked me to go skinny-dipping.”
He groaned. “Not my best line, but I had been working up the courage to talk to you for weeks. I’m surprised anything I said was intelligible. The day we moved in for the summer, I started formulating a plan to convince you I was worth your time.”
“You in a wetsuit was enough.”
