Chapter 12
FOOL ME ONCE
ROWAN
When we leave the quiet Christmas tree forest, it’s like emerging from a time warp. Trouble is I’m praying Isla’s installed a turbo jet pack in her car, since I’m late to pick up Mia.
How the hell did this happen? I play a goddamn timed sport—I don’t struggle with the clock. I’m always on time if not early. But we ventured so far into the woods and—I hate to admit it—I got a little lost in the conversation about the future.
Once we hit the highway, the traffic flips us off, and we’re stuck slogging behind cars until we reach Sausalito. Maybe I can make it home to get my car, then to Mia’s school. But still, I’m tapping my foot, checking the time, and weighing my options.
“I should call my mom,” I say reluctantly, but I feel bad already. “Mom’s probably inking a client right now. Her shop’s not that far from Mia’s school in Japantown.”
“The GPS says we should be at your house in fifteen minutes,” Isla offers, and that should give me just enough time to slide into my car and race to Mia’s school by the three-thirty bell. But it’s a razor-thin window.
“Oh good. Pretty sure Mom and Dad have a busy day, since every day at the shop is busy. Besides, she always helps out, and I feel like a douche asking again,” I admit, which isn’t something I usually do, but I’m feeling a little…frayed thin.
“You’re not,” Isla says, her tone gentle, but firm too. “Not at all. And I’m sure we’ll get you home on time.”
I’m not convinced though. I roll through other options. The easiest thing is to text Mia and ask her to go home with Tyler or Sabrina when they pick up their kids, but that has ‘bad dad’ written all over it. My job is literally to be there for my daughter.
Isla takes one hand off the wheel and sets it on my biceps. “If I drive you straight to the school instead of your house, we can pick her up together. That’ll save you time, and we should make it, no problem.”
I’ve had to figure out single parenting for close to five years now, and not once have I ever had to ask a woman I’m attracted to to help with my kid. “You sure? You’ve got the tree on the car. Don’t you need to get it in water soon?”
Her smile is reassuring as she says, “Within six to eight hours of cutting, so the tree should be just fine. And yes, of course I’m sure we can pick her up. I’d love to help,” she says as we cruise over the last hill in Sausalito.
I know she means it. I do, but still, some part of me takes over my mouth and says, “But this doesn’t mean I’m going to like dating.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “Rowan, just let me do a nice thing.”
Fair point. “Fine. You’re right. I’m a dick.”
“You said it,” she says, pointing at me.
“I did,” I say, and when she zippily maneuvers the car onto the narrowing lanes of the Golden Gate Bridge, I turn to her, stripping the sarcasm from my tone.
“Seriously, I appreciate it, Isla. I do.” And then I enter the school’s name into her GPS.
“Whenever I’m in town, I try to pick her up myself.
It’s a lot for a kid, you know? With my schedule and being a single parent and all.
Her mom’s out of the picture entirely, so Mia bounces around a lot between my parents and me.
I want to show up for her. I usually don’t misjudge time. ”
“It’s okay. It happens. We’ve got this,” she says with an easy confidence, navigating traffic like a cab driver in New York City, making smart and savvy turns, finding the side streets before Waze tells her to.
It’s ridiculously sexy—her moxie behind the wheel, but also her calm demeanor. I think back to the words I used the other night to describe her. “Hey, Isla,” I say.
“Yes?” she asks as she weaves around an idling truck on Van Ness.
“The other night I was going to call you persistent.”
“What stopped you?”
“It didn’t feel like the right word.”
“Okay,” she says, seeming a little wary.
“Unstoppable is more like it,” I say.
And her smile right now is precisely that.
Five minutes later, she taps the turn signal with a triumphant flick of her fingers, then pulls up in front of Mia’s school with time to spare.
I whistle my approval. “Formula One has nothing on you.”
Her blue eyes twinkle. “In a past life I was a race car driver.”
“From the candy cane punch to the side-street swagger, you’re a regular Ms. Fix-It,” I say.
She bobs a shoulder. “Thank you.”
Maybe I’ve been a little hard on her with the whole matchmaking thing. She’s only trying to help me, even though I don’t believe in romance. “No, thank you,” I say, then I text Mia, making sure she knows to look for a red car with Christmas lights on it and a big, bushy tree on the roof.
When my kiddo hops into the vehicle a few minutes later, Mia points to the roof. “We’re getting a tree?” Her voice shoots to Mars, packed with so much hope it nearly takes me out.
“No, cupcake. Isla was just helping me out with picking you up after I helped her carry a Christmas tree. Plus, you already have Matilda,” I point out.
We shopped for the secondhand artificial tree at Goodwill the year after Regina took off.
I didn’t want a tree ever again; Mia did, so Matilda—as Mia named her—got a new home at our place.
Matilda is a three-foot high artificial tree that fits perfectly in the corner of her room where she sets it up every year.
Perfectly out of my line of sight too. “And we have stockings,” I point out.
Or really, one stocking—hers. I don’t want anything for Christmas. Ever.
“But a tree for both of us would be so great,” Mia says as she slings on her seat belt. “Now that I know you can carry one, after all.”
Isla’s jaw drops and she jerks her gaze toward me, mouthing, “You pretend you can’t carry a tree?”
“No!” I take a beat, then mutter. “I just maybe, possibly mentioned that tall trees are really heavy.”
Isla tsks me. “Rowan Bishop.” My name is said with all the disappointment in the world.
But a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. “Besides, don’t you like Matilda?” I ask Mia. I sure hope she does. Just the other week, I suffered through the five minutes it took to help hang the baker’s dozen’s worth of ornaments Matilda holds.
“Of course I like Matilda, Dad,” Mia says, and it sounds like there’s a touch of placating.
“But a big, fluffy, tall one for the living room would be so fun.” She pauses, and in the quiet, I hunt for some sort of suitable explanation for why I still don’t want one.
Your mom broke my heart on Christmas doesn’t really cut it.
But I don’t need to say a word since Mia’s scanning from Isla to me, seeming to assess the situation, then she declares, “But since you didn’t get a tree, I take it this means we’re going to open today’s Advent calendar now.
Because, if you think about it, Isla should be a part of it.
She helped me plan it. She’s my lawyer, you know. ”
“Mia, you’re nine. You don’t need a lawyer.”
“I did though. She defended my read-every-night rights,” Mia says with a proud lift of her chin as Isla pulls away from the school.
This kid keeps me on my toes. But my job requires quick reflexes, so I use them. “It’s a school day. Don’t you have homework?”
Mia smiles like an angel. “I did all my homework at school already. It’s like this was meant to be!
And it really feels super fair that Isla does our Advent calendar with us,” Mia says, trying again to make her case.
It’s admirable, but I’ve got a surefire way to end this convo.
I don’t know that all this time spent together is a good idea.
I don’t want Mia to get too comfortable with the idea of Isla being around. That’s playing with fire.
“Love that idea. But I’m sure Isla has things to do at home,” I say, then glance Isla’s way. “Like devise new ways to torture me.”
“Yes, that’s it. I planned to go home to my little underground cave and plot all sorts of dark ways to make your life difficult,” she says, turning onto the road that’ll take us back to my house.
Mia leans against my seat, then chimes in once more. “That doesn’t sound fun, Isla. I think it’d be more enjoyable if we go to the library and donate books.”
I blink, a little confused. “Wait. I thought you wanted books for yourself for the calendar. Now you want to donate them?”
“I want both! My teacher told us about a program the library started—well, Josie started it,” she says, and Josie’s a librarian married to one of my teammates.
“And the friends of the library are collecting gently used Christmas books, or really any books. Then they’re selling them for a Christmas fundraiser.
I figured I could donate some of my old books, since I’m getting new ones. ”
“Sounds like a plan. After Isla drops us off, we can do that.”
“Yay,” Mia says.
Isla just smirks from the driver’s seat, stifling a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” I ask her.
“She has your number, Rowan. She really does,” Isla says.
I can’t argue with her there.
Mia laughs, then says, “Dad! Don’t be silly. Isla doesn’t need to drop us off. I invited her to come along. She’s our friend. Isla, wanna come? I know how much you love books too.”
Ah, that’s reassuring from Mia—the use of the word friend. I’m grateful that’s how Mia sees Isla. But even so, I don’t want Isla to feel obligated. “Isla was only doing us a favor by picking you up—”
“I would love to go,” Isla says brightly, sounding like sunshine itself.
It’s not that I don’t believe her. It’s that I don’t trust…well, most people. Experience and all. “You would?”
“Of course.”
It’s said sweetly and for a second, or maybe several, my mind dangerously wanders a few steps ahead, picturing us all hanging out together. Stopping at a coffee shop after school. Going to the library. Walking Wanda.