Checking In on Her (Dad's Best Friend Age Gap Romance #2)

Chapter 1

Parker

I knew as soon as I saw my best friend’s wife’s name pop up on my caller ID that she wanted something.

I almost didn’t answer. The only reason I answered is because Bruce is a great guy and he recently called me to tell me that he hurt his shoulder.

I thought that maybe she was calling me to give me an update.

But then I answered, and she spent ten minutes beating around the bush. So I knew she wanted something, something that wasn’t a little ask. Then she said something that clued me in.

“Did you know that Lucy got into Stanford?”

“No. Lucy and I didn’t really keep in touch after I moved away.”

Mostly because I think she had a bit of a crush on me, and she’s a gorgeous girl who is too young for me, even though I’m younger than her parents. She’d been sixteen and just getting into dating boys.

I shouldn’t have been looking. I’d been thirty, just on the verge of being old enough to be her father, but not quite.

Those high school boys had been looking, but it was not my job to play protector over her virtue.

That fell on Marion and Bruce. Marion is the ultimate helicopter mom, so I knew she could handle it.

I was usually advocating for Marion to give Lucy a little more leeway, but when the boys started coming around, I stopped speaking up. Bruce and I both gave her free rein.

I almost feel bad for Lucy. Her mom was always up in her business. Then again, Marion probably had reason to be worried once Lucy started dating.

I know that Bruce let her take the lead on that, though he told me that he was happy to intimidate any of the boys who came over. I understood.

Bruce was my first boss and mentor once I graduated from college and started working. Even when I moved on, he and I kept in touch. Now, I make more than he and Marion combined, but I had to move to California to be able to make that much.

I’m not at all surprised that Lucy moved from Seattle to Stanford. In fact, I’m a little surprised that she stayed so close. She’s a smart kid. I pictured her moving to Harvard just to be on the other side of the country from her mom.

Then again, Stanford is pretty far from Seattle, where Marion lives. It’s not like she can just drive down. She’d have to book a flight because there’s no way that Marion would drive the fourteen or whatever hours it would take from Seattle to Palo Alto, where I live.

Here it comes. She wants me to be her lookout while Lucy’s here. I refuse to spy on my friend’s daughter.

“I was wondering if you’d check on Lucy,” Marion finally says.

“No.”

“Come on, Parker.”

“No. Absolutely not. I’m not going skulking around the dorms at Stanford. I’m in my thirties, for fuck’s sake.”

“I didn’t expect you to go skulking. I made sure Lucy has your number. I’ll text you hers. Just go see what her apartment’s like. I’m in Europe right now and she refused to wait until I got back to move in.”

“The dorms are open?”

“She’s not living in the dorms.”

I snort. “I can’t believe you’d let her get her own apartment.”

“I didn’t have much choice. Did you know they have gender-inclusive housing at Stanford?”

“That sounds like a good thing.”

“Except it means they’ll put girls and boys together. I’m not talking in the same building or the same floor, but in the same room. They will assign boys as roommates with girls.”

“I’m sure there’s a way to opt out of that,” I tell her. “They can’t force that on anyone.”

“But then it could be right next-door.”

And that won’t be the case in an apartment? I don’t say that aloud, because that will just send her into an overprotective spiral. I’ve witnessed that too many times, and Lucy was usually the one who took the brunt of that.

“So,” she continues, “you wouldn’t have to go to the dorms. Just check her apartment.

She demanded that she be able to pick out the place, otherwise, she was going to move into the dorms and get a job to pay for it herself.

Bruce let her do it while I was in another country.

And he didn’t even fly down to check it out because his shoulder is bothering him. ”

I smile, proud that Lucy learned to stand up for herself. I wouldn’t mind seeing the woman she’s grown into.

“Send me her number. I’ll text her and offer to take her to lunch or something, but I’m not reporting every detail back to you. I care about Lucy, which means that I want her to have a little privacy and independence now that she’s an adult.”

“Does that mean you’d agree to weekly lunches?”

I roll my eyes skyward. “It means that will be between me and Lucy. If it’s that important, why don’t you fly in every week to take her to lunch?”

“Now that Lucy’s out of the house, I accepted the Chief Marketing Officer position. I’ll work it out so I can stop in San Francisco often and get layovers there as much as possible, but I can’t be there all the time like I was when she was in high school.”

For that, I’m sure Lucy is eternally grateful. “I’ll ask Lucy if she’d like to meet with me regularly. If she says no, I’m going to back off.”

Marion scoffs. “If you ask, she’ll say yes. We both know she had a crush on you.”

I don’t respond to that. I especially don’t mention the first thought that pops into my mind unbidden — Lucy’s legal now. Fuck. Maybe this isn’t the best idea ever.

“Like I said, I’ll offer to take her to lunch.”

“Great. I’ll text you her number, her address, and her class schedule.”

“Bye, Marion,” I say as I disconnect the call.