6. Clyde
CLYDE
It had been days since that horrifying night. The very next morning, Posy acted as if it had been no big deal. It had been. But there was nothing we could do to change the past, only what we could do to avoid it happening in the future.
Liam, whom Posy called “Micah’s older brother,” showed up at our house the next day with his mom, apologizing for taking her without asking an adult first. Apparently, his brother had been excited about their good deed, and when they told their mom, she was duly horrified.
I had never blamed him. He was trying to help and was still young and hadn’t thought past helping her get home.
His mom was far less forgiving, going so far as to have him apologize to the library, too.
The library, in turn, called me and assured me it would never happen again. They felt guilty they had let her wander off with someone not on her list. I assured them I had enough guilt for all of us and not to worry about it.
I did feel more at ease for the next club day.
Knowing that everyone involved saw where things went so it wouldn’t happen again was a relief.
Most of the fixes were small, my phone was not.
It had completely died and required a replacement.
If only I’d noticed that earlier that day, this could all have been avoided.
“You told everyone else to forgive themselves,” I reminded myself, not for the first time.
The only part of that night that hadn’t been resolved was the situation with Stephen.
He was never far from my mind, and most of the time he was preventing me from focusing on what I needed to be doing.
I always knew that scenting one’s mate was unlike anything else I’d ever experience.
I hadn’t understood that it meant it would be all-encompassing, the way it was quickly becoming.
Having scented Stephen made him part of my every thought. My wolf was even less patient than I was. He wanted to see Stephen now. He wanted to mark him. He wanted to make him ours.
I wanted that too. But it wasn’t that easy, because the second I’d taken Posy in, she became my top priority. I refused to not keep my vow to her and her late parents because I met my mate.
Stephen had been wonderful when Posy needed him, and that was great. But it didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to take my time and do this right. I wanted to see him again, talk to him when emotions weren’t running high the way they had that night.
I had no idea if he’d scented me as his. I hadn’t initially, so the possibility he hadn’t was pretty real. Especially since, unlike me, he’d left and wouldn’t have picked up the scent when the wind shifted the way I had.
My logic was he drove off quickly, so he couldn’t have known. Who would do that after scenting their mate? But thinking that opened the flood of possibilities of why. Maybe if he thought I didn’t want him? He might’ve assumed I didn’t recognize him and that he was wrong.
No matter what, the fact remained that I pretty much treated him like shit. I was scared and reacted. Any father would. But let’s be real. Even if he looked past that, he might not be looking for a mate plus one.
Stephen might be one of those people that only wanted his own children, the ones he helped create. Or maybe he didn’t like children at all. And I’d respect him for any of that. Children weren’t something you should have thrust upon you. They deserved better than that.
And at the end of the day, Posy and I were a package deal. I didn’t care how much I longed for Stephen or how insistent my wolf demanded it. That was how it was going to be.
This morning, I brought out the garbage, lugging the cans to the street, and a car that was passing by sped up. That was unusual for around here, and I noticed. People tended to be pretty slow in these neighborhoods because between kids, speed bumps, and pets, it wasn't safe not to be.
As he passed by, I could’ve sworn it was Stephen’s car and hated that I didn’t get a decent look at the driver. It was probably wishful thinking. Why would he be driving by?
My wolf insisted he’d scented us too and was here for us, but that didn’t make sense. He’d have stopped if he had. Right?
Just as the car was about to turn the corner, I noticed a bumper sticker that looked familiar, with two A’s and a teal swirl. Atlas maybe? He drove too quickly for me to catch it all.
I pulled out my phone and started typing companies in the area, stores, anything and everything.
The logo wasn’t new to me, but also not fully familiar.
And then I got a hit, Atler and Atler. I had no idea if he worked there, if someone put the bumper sticker on his car randomly, or if he was new to the car and it was the old owner’s, but it was a lead.
I had his phone number, and yet I was grasping at this little bit of knowledge like it was gold.
Later today, as I was in the car line, I watched Posy skip all the way to the car with an envelope in her hand, waving it at me.
I assumed she got invited to a birthday party.
Every time she did, she was excited and ready to share like this.
But once she popped into the car, I learned the truth.
It was a thank-you card, one that she’d made for Stephen and she couldn’t wait to show me.
I wanted to look at it right away, but the rule of car line was the second that seat belt was buckled, you were out of there. On the way home, Posy told me about it. And when we pulled into the driveway, she was waving it in my face before the car was off.
She’d done a great job. It was a drawing of her on the phone and Stephen on his phone. She was on my recliner, and he was sitting on a chair I didn’t recognize. Between the two of them was a wall, showing they weren’t in the same place. And at the bottom, it said: Thank you.
“Stephen’s gonna love your card.”
“I know. I’m a really good artist, Daddy. I can’t wait to see him and give it to him.”
She didn’t want to mail it. She wanted to bring it to him, but I gave her the option to send it with a stamp in case it was more about getting it to him. He was a virtual stranger, after all.
“I can mail it for you.”
“Nope. Presents given from the heart shouldn’t be sent by somebody else. And besides, I wanna see his button collection. He says he has all kinds. He likes pancakes. Maybe he’d come here, bring his buttons, and eat pancakes with us.”
Little stinker had the whole thing planned out in her head. It was a pretty good plan too.
“I don’t know if he’s going to want to bring his collection here.”
My wolf was all about feeding our mate.
“How about this? We’ll go inside. You can get your homework done, and I will figure out a way for you to get the card to him and for us to thank him properly.”
“Will he come for dinner?”
“That’s up to him.”
I’d already gotten his phone number off the call record of the phone the night it happened.
I hadn’t wanted to risk losing it. As Posy sat there doing her color-by-math answer paper, I played scripts over and over again in my head about what to say when I called.
Eventually I realized it was pull-off-the-Band-Aid time.
I just had to call and get it over with.
“I’m going to call him now, sweetie. So I need you to be quiet.”
She covered her mouth with both hands, nodding up and down.
The call went directly to voicemail, one for business.
I was too disappointed by the bot answering that I didn’t even catch which one.
That explained why a man under ninety was answering a landline.
It was his work, and I couldn’t really leave a message there.
It was a generic company voicemail, not his direct line.
Odds were good there were multiple Stephens.
Instead, I hung up.
“It wasn’t his phone, sweetie. He was borrowing someone else’s,” which wasn’t a lie. It was work. “We’ll figure out another way.”
I looked up the phone number online. Sure enough, it was the same business as the bumper sticker, and it had an office address.
Would it be too much for Posy and me to go there and bring it to him?
It could be seen as intrusive, but I could just leave it there like a random delivery person would.
That wasn’t intrusive. It wasn’t like I had to say, “We need to see Stephen. Go get him now” or anything like that.
“I think maybe Daddy will need to drop it off for you.”
She seemed okay with that. I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote an apology for all that had happened. Wrinkled it up and threw it away. I wanted to tell him I was mean and how I messed everything up and that I’d been scared and how I did not scent him at first and that I wasn’t rejecting him.
But even if it was a good idea to put that all out there, it very much was not when I was bringing it to his job. For all I knew, the company had people who opened all the mail.
Instead, I kept it simple. Posy would like to see you again. Can we meet up? And then I wrote my number. I didn’t sign my name. It didn’t occur to me that I forgot that key piece of information until after it was sealed. Oh, well. He could call me Posy’s dad, and that would be good enough for now.
The next day, I went to his office after car line. Posy wanted to come, but understood why she couldn’t. Dropping off thank-you cards was far from an excused absence.
I didn’t see his car outside, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there.
I carried the card inside and gave it to the man who greeted me.
He was carrying a cup of coffee and didn’t look like it was normally his job, but as soon as I mentioned Stephen, he was more than willing to help.
I let him know it was from my daughter, whom Stephen had helped.
I also let it slip out that I saw his bumper sticker and that was how I knew where to go.
The man agreed to give it to him.
I was disappointed not to see my mate, but grateful to be able to scent him briefly.
His scent had been faintly present. He hadn’t been there in at least a couple of days.
Maybe he didn’t work in the office every day.
That could mean he wouldn’t get the card for a while.
I needed to remember that so I wasn’t disappointed if I didn’t get a response immediately.
I gave him my number.
Now it was up to him.
All day, I kept my phone where I could see it, made sure the volume was up, and all notifications on. I barely managed to get my job done, I was so distracted, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t risking missing a call from my mate. It was a call I’d already felt like I’d waited forever for.