Page 96 of Single Dad Dilemma
There was no one to listen.
Larry, for all his many faults, was a great listener. All these years on my own, he’d been the one to hear everything. The things I didn’t want anyone to hear.
Oh, but at the back of my head, something terrible happened. A voice whispered, prying through the dark webs of grief, until I had no choice but to listen.
Barrett would.
Barrett would listen.
I shook my head furiously, my breaths coming in sharp and fast through my nose.
How had he managed this? How had he weaseled his way into this position over such a short amount of time?
It was some mind-boggling man magic that I didn’t want to think on too deeply. That pissed me off too.
I eased down the street, glaring at his house like it had kicked me in the crotch, when the man himself walked through the front door and put a couple of suitcases into the back of a black SUV. Even with a glare already fixed on my face, my eyes narrowed even farther, until I could hardly see.
Didn’t even look over at me. No wave; no serious, restrained little nod like,Yeah, I see you.Yeah, we had some moments recently, and I just wanted to acknowledge your presence.
Even as I pulled into my driveway, he never glanced my way.
I scoffed. Loudly. Kinda sounded like I had a hair ball.
“Who the fuck does he think he is?” I hissed.
There was a moment just after I punched the button to turn the car off when blind anger, frustration, and grief coalesced into a screaming pile of wreckage. I shoved at the door, shouldering it open and marching between the yards before I could talk myself out of it.
Steam was probably shooting out my ears.
Displaced steam, but it was there nonetheless. Logic had no place. The sight of his indifference kicked that shit right out the fucking window.
Barrett’s head was covered by a ball cap, his broad shoulders in a black hooded sweatshirt as he set a suitcase on its side in the back of the vehicle.
“You have some nerve,” I said hotly. “You can’t even wave. Or look at me. After yesterday?”
Abort! Abort!another voice in my head screamed. Especially when he froze and turned in my direction, his eyes wide and his eyebrows lifted.
“Um—”
“No,” I cut in, my hand making a dramatic stabbing motion in the air. “No, this isn’t fair. I don’t know what to do with you, Barrett. You makenosense. I’m leaving, and you know that, but you keep doing these things and I don’t know why. You give me ashovel. And sit in the snow and listen, and you carry the bag of horribleness for me, but you’re ... you’re so ...”
He winced, holding up a hand. “Wait, hang on, I don’t think you want to do this.”
I crossed my arms, hip jutting out as I pinned him with a lethal stare. “Don’t tell me what I do and don’t want to do, you bossy asshole. And that’s the other thing, you know. You are not in charge of whatever ... whatever this is! Whateveryouthink is happening here. The gestures and the ... conversations and the flirting, if you can even call it that—because honestly, I think you’re really bad at it, if it is.”
He swiped a hand over his mouth and looked me up and down, but without the usual lingering heat. “Lily, right?”
Oh, okay. So that’s what it felt like to have someone stab you in the chest.
My mouth hung open, and I blinked. Repeatedly. “What?” I said in a horrified whisper. “Is this a fucking joke?”
He blew out a slow breath. “Trust me, I am not the one you want to be saying this to.”
Something wasn’t right.
In fact, something was very, very wrong.
“What do you mean?” I asked, arms tightening around my waist, an anchor in whatever insanity was about to explode in my cranium.
