Chapter 21
Twenty-One
I leaned back in my seat and laughed. I’d been doing a lot of that all night. Reegan and Evie were getting along like they’d known each other forever. They already had inside jokes. It helped that they had very similar senses of humor.
Evie’s phone buzzed on the coffee table. I had a rule against phones at the dinner table, so she flashed me a look of approval.
“Go ahead,” I told her.
She grinned and hurried to see what had her phone buzzing constantly.
Reegan raised an eyebrow in question.
“No phones at the table,” I told her.
“Not a bad rule. Then you actually talk to each other.”
“Exactly. When she first got a phone, it was like an extra limb. Not that I can say anything. I’m the same sometimes.”
“I think we all are. But it’s good to have connections. Sometimes we forget that the connections we make in person have to count, too.”
I reached for her hand and brushed my thumb over her wrist.
She gasped, her eyes dilating. She bit her lip.
God, she was beautiful. Not just that, but she spent all evening talking to my kid like Evie was important. Reegan didn’t rush to tell Evie what to do or how to think. She asked questions and got to know Evie in a way few people I’d known had done.
“Dad, can I go out with Maddie and Katie?” Evie asked from the living room.
“Where are you going?”
“Jeffrey is having some friends over. People we all know. We’re all going to hang out there, unless we get bored.”
I looked closely at my kid. After I learned of her crush on Maddie’s older brother, I worried.
She was young and inexperienced with boys, as far as I knew.
Boys weren’t always thoughtful when it came to the girls around them.
Especially boys who were in college and younger girls who had crushes on them.
Jeffrey was a good kid, but he was still male, which meant he still had a propensity to think with his dick. “How late?”
Evie looked at her phone again. “Katie said she can be here in a few minutes, then we’ll be back by one.”
I nodded. “Okay. But be careful. And if you go anywhere other than Maddie’s house, let me know.”
“I will. Thanks, Dad.” She threw her arms around my neck in a quick hug, then hurried to her room.
I had no doubt she was going to change into something she hoped would catch Jeffrey’s attention, but I wasn’t going to tell her not to.
She was almost eighteen, and in two weeks, I’d be dropping her off at college.
“Close friends?” Reegan asked, drawing my attention back to the present.
I nodded. “Best friends. Maddie is Oscar’s niece. The three girls have been besties forever. It’s the one thing Evie is worried about. They’re all going to different colleges, so they won’t be together.”
“They’ll all make new friends, and they’ll be able to see each other when they’re home for their breaks. Sometimes we need the chance to fly without the people we’ve always held on to.”
I studied her closely, wondering who she was thinking about. The look in her eyes made me want to hold her tight and never let go. Was she thinking about her ex? The one she mentioned a few times?
I didn’t have time to ask before Evie rushed back into the room. She hadn’t changed, but she was wearing more makeup than before. Mascara and lipstain from what I could tell. Both highlighted her features in ways that would be hard to ignore, if someone was watching.
“Thank you for coming over tonight, Reegan. It was really good to meet you, officially, as my dad’s… date?”
“It was nice to meet you, too, Evie. Have fun with your friends.”
“Thanks.” Her cheeks pinked, and I knew she wasn’t just going to see her friends. She wanted to see Jeffrey.
I stood and followed Evie to the entryway while she put on her shoes. “Be safe, okay?”
“I will.” She glanced behind me and leaned closer. “I really like her, Dad. And even more than that, I like the way you look when you’re around her. She makes you happy. That is enough for me, but she’s also really cool.”
“She’s leaving in a few weeks,” I said, keeping my voice low. I knew Evie picked up on the pain in my voice when her eyebrows jumped.
“Doesn’t mean you love her any less, though, does it?”
I exhaled a laugh at my far-too-insightful kid. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Maybe she’ll stick around.”
“I’d never ask her to.”
Evie shrugged. “Maybe if she knew you wanted her to, she would. Her best friend is here. What is she going back to?”
I opened my mouth to tell her, but realized I didn’t know.
Evie’s phone buzzed, and she looked down at it, then hugged me. “Katie’s here. I love you, Dad. Have fun.”
“You, too,” I said before she ran out the door and I realized she was leaving so Reegan and I could have time alone.
My kid was way smarter than I knew.
I chuckled as I returned to the table where Reegan was stacking dishes. “You don’t have to clean up.”
She smiled at me. “You cooked. It’s the least I can do.”
I grabbed the leftover dishes and carried them to the island to make it easier to put things away. “Evie adores you.”
“The feeling is mutual. She’s a great kid.”
I stopped her before she was able to get out of the kitchen. I pulled her into my arms and kissed her softly. “I adore you, too.”
“That feeling is mutual, too,” she whispered.
“Good.” I kissed her again, getting bolder with a sweep of my tongue through her mouth.
She held onto me, her hands sliding up my arms. She groaned when I flexed, her nails digging into my muscles. “You are dangerous to my sanity.”
“That feeling is mutual, too,” I parroted her words.
She chuckled. Our gazes met and held. I saw all sorts of things in her eyes. Questions she wanted to ask, things she wanted to know, maybe even a hint of the same feelings I’d been fighting to keep buried.
I wanted to kiss away all her worries, love her until she didn’t have anything to worry about, but she spun out of my grasp and went to the table.
Something was there. Something she was afraid to say to me. I wanted to know what it was, but until she was ready to say it, I knew I wouldn’t find out.
We cleaned up the kitchen in tandem. Dirty dishes went into the dishwasher. Leftovers were packed up and put in the fridge. When there was nothing left to do, I turned to Reegan again.
“I don’t want kids,” she blurted before I could say anything.
“Um, okay?”
She exhaled a long breath. “I… My last relationship… He wanted kids, and I didn’t. I told him I’d think about it, but I was scared to let go of him. Of us. We’d been together for years, and…”
“Flying without him was hard?” I asked, using her words.
She smiled sadly. “Yeah. It was. Very hard. But it was wrong of me to hold on to him for as long as I did. I told myself there was something wrong with me for not being excited about kids. I’m a teacher.
It’s almost a requirement. But I’ve always been reluctant to have my own kids.
Landon… My ex. He pushed me to move our relationship forward.
After three years, he wanted me to move in with him.
I… I couldn’t do it. I signed a new lease on my apartment without telling him.
He broke up with me. I deserved it. I don’t blame him for doing what I didn’t have the strength to do. ”
“I did the same thing with my marriage,” I confessed.
“I knew Hannah was all wrong for me after about a year. She wasn’t the person I thought she was.
But I blamed myself. I asked her to move here.
I convinced myself she would see the same things I did in this town, but she never wanted to be a part of it.
She wanted a kid, and I thought that would make her happy, so we had Evie.
For a little while, things were better, but… ”
“It still wasn’t right.”
“Yeah. I am the reason she’s unhappy. If she’d never moved here, she might have had a better life.”
“But you love Evie?”
“I do. God, more than anything. She’s my entire world.”
Reegan nodded, swallowing thickly. “That’s why I needed to tell you I don’t want kids. I know this is… temporary, but I also want you to know me.”
I cupped her jaw, and she nuzzled against my hand, as if she was desperate for a connection but not allowing herself to ask for it. “I’m forty-six years old. My daughter is about to leave for college. Having more kids hasn’t been something I’ve thought about for a long time.”
“I don’t want you to regret—”
I stopped her protest with a hard kiss. I banded my arm around her body and held her against me until she was soft and pliable in my arms.
Then I carried her to my bed and showed her how few regrets I had when it came to meeting her.
And how much I loved her, even though I couldn’t say the words.
The two weeks between Evie and Reegan meeting and taking Evie to college went by in the blink of an eye. I worked both weeks, and so did Evie, but when we weren’t working, we were picking up things she needed and hadn’t gotten.
Finding time to see Reegan had proved just as challenging as getting Evie ready to leave.
I brought Reegan coffee every morning, and the four of us had dinner together a couple of times, but that was about it.
The few nights Evie was with her mom, Reegan had plans with Ashlyn.
We both understood the other was busy, but I missed Reegan.
And I felt like an ass for not being around more.
That was going to change, though. Hannah demanded Evie spend her last night before college at her house, leaving me with an empty house and big plans to invite Reegan over for dinner and convince her to spend the night in my bed.
Those plans were dashed when I walked in the door and heard a persistent beeping.
I followed the sound to the laundry room. I’d tossed a load of clothes in the dryer before I left for work. They were still wet. The beeping stopped when I opened the door, but the code on the front of the machine did not go away.