Chapter 44
Libby
As I sit at a small table at Tony’s Cantina I can’t decide how I feel about being here. It’s both bitter and sweet seeing as how the best date I’ve even been on was at a table just five feet away but also, it was a date that was never meant to happen the way it did.
Why Dax chose here hasn’t quite added up in my head. Yet here I am. Giving it another chance. And just to clarify, it’s not just for the girls’ sakes. I would never entertain something that I planned to pull the plug on simply to make them happy in the moment.
No. I came here because after rereading the card three, four, maybe ten times I realized that I want to believe in romance.
As a bookshop owner, I always have. When you devote your life to showing people the magic of stories, it’s kind of implied that you believe in that magic.
But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, especially since our date is at seven and it’s six fifty-six and he’s not here yet.
When I agreed to go out with him, I sent him a simple text. I watched as the status switched from delivered to read in a matter of seconds. Then the ellipses appeared, disappeared, and appeared again for a solid fifteen seconds before he responded with a time and location.
Wednesday. Tony’s Cantina at seven.
He wasted no time, probably because he was eager to make things right. And I accepted the twenty-four-hour notice because I have also had an anxious little animal eating a pit in my stomach for days now, and I need to know if I am going to have to live with it forever or not.
It’s seven-o-one and still no sign of him. If the man’s intention is to recreate our first date, he’s doing a bang-up job. I have a chip and salsa flight, a muddled gin and tonic and the tingling anticipation of whether or not I’m going to get ghosted or not.
Hopefully, this time the right guy shows up…
But then I see him. He comes in through the front door with a small bouquet of sad flowers. Still…I find myself smiling.
He’s wearing jeans, not his normal slacks and button down.
He’s also wearing a red Henley that looks so soft my first thought is about how much I want to touch it.
To wrap my arms around his toned waist and bury myself in his chest. To take in his sweet and spicy scent and pretend like we can just stay that way forever.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says as he walks over, and his expression slides off his face.
Probably because he realizes that’s his line from last time.
I bite back a smile at the irony. “The, uh, girls insisted I bring flowers, but they wanted to collect them along the walk here. They picked them out of planters.”
“The girls are here?” I ask, looking around.
“They’re strolling around the harbor walk. Probably getting ice cream before dinner and other things Jenna does for fun, just to make my life harder.”
It earns him a real smile. “That’s not fair,” I say. “We haven’t even talked about things yet. You’re not allowed to make me smile.”
“I miss your smile,” he says as he sits down. “I miss you.”
My heart skips and the bartender, the same girl from the last time we were here, comes over and takes his drink order. Then she uses her bartender intuition to read the table and excuses herself without any chit chat.
“They got the flowers from the planters?” I ask, looking over the marigolds, pansies, and petunias.
“Yeah. Really pissed off the owner of a wineshop down the street but Poppy straightened them out,” he answers.
I giggle. “I bet she did,” I say, touching one of the soft, purple petals.
“Libby,” Dax says, and his tone draws my eyes to meet his. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
“You don’t have to keep apologizing,” I say, setting the flowers down and reaching for my drink.
“Well, I’m going to. Because what I did was wrong.”
I take a sip and swallow. “It was.”
“I was lonely. I was…low. Coming here has always been hard for me. But I do it because I want–” He pauses, searching for the right end to that sentence.
To remember her. I finish it for him in my head.
“I want to believe in love.”
I blink. If I didn’t know any better I’d think he had my conversation with Summer bugged. Although I know he doesn’t because after Kai freaking out over the security footage, I don’t think we even have cameras anymore.
“Love?” I ask.
“Love. Romance. All of it. You know, I thought that part of me was dead,” he says with a forced smile directed at the bartender as she sets his drink in front of him. “But it’s not.” He takes a sip, and I do too.
“I understand that…” I tell him. “More than you know.”
“Turns out, it’s not dead. My heart is very much alive. Very much beating. Very much in love.”
I stop.
Dax’s eyes are locked on mine and he reaches for my hand across the table.
“I know I messed up. Hell, I know I am a mess in general. But from the moment I saw you, you did something inside me. You woke up parts of me that I had tucked away. Feelings I never thought I’d feel again.
You make me happy, Libby. You make me want to be alive.
You bring me joy and remind me that all of the pain is worth it.
And the girls,” he stops, swallowing back a lump in his throat. “The girls, they love you too.”
“Too?” I ask, my own voice shaking.
Dax’s lips tip in an easy smile. His blue eyes are warm and familiar. Like home.
“Yes. Too. I love you Libby. And I’ll do anything if you let me show you that. But I understand if you can’t.”
I blink fiercely, not wanting to fall apart in the middle of an upbeat restaurant. But right now, I don’t really care. I don’t care if everyone is staring or if they see me crying or anything else.
“I love you too,” I tell him. And Dax’s smile reaches his eyes. He takes my hand in both of his and pressing my fingers to his lips, kissing them one, two, three times.
Then, before either of us can say anything, the girls come running in.
“Daddy! Daddy we got ice cream!” Poppy exclaims, practically jumping into his lap.
Delilah scoots into the booth next to me, smiling up through her long eyelashes.
“I see that,” Dax laughs. “It’s all over your face.”
Poppy giggles and wipes her mouth with a napkin off our table. Then Jenna walks up looking winded and apologetic.
“Sorry,” she smiles. “I held them off as long as I could.”
“But we saw you kissing Miss Libby’s hand,” Poppy says.
“And we knew that meant the date worked,” Delilah adds matter of factly.
Dax’s face flushes a little, but I just laugh.
“Did you make up?” Poppy asks.
“Girls, I think your daddy and Miss Libby probably want to be alone a little longer,” Jenna says.
“Actually, I’d love if you stayed for dinner,” I insist.
“So, you did make up!” Poppy says as the girls sit down with us. Jenna squeezes Dax’s shoulder and leaves the four of us alone.
“Yeah. Yeah we did,” I smile at Poppy as she reaches for a chip.
“I knew it,” Delilah smirks.
I look over at Dax who is wipes a hand down his face but underneath it, he is smiling. A happy, surrendered smile.
“Daddy?” Poppy asks.
“Yes my love?”
“Does this mean Miss Libby is going to move in with us still?”
Dax’s eyes dart to mine and we both smile before I look over at the girls. “I think we are starting a new chapter,” I say.
“Like a story?” Delilah asks.
“Yes. Just like a story. A story about all of us. A story of something new and exciting.”
“A story about love,” Delilah adds.
“A story about love,” I echo.
“And mac and cheese night,” Poppy says, and we all laugh.
“Obviously,” I say, smiling over at Dax who mouths the words I love you.
And I tuck it away. Like a bookmark in a book, I want to keep reading until the end. And when it’s finished, I’ll read it again.