Chapter 2
“Another drink?” the bartender offered, but I shook my head. One was my limit. I wasn’t twenty-something anymore. Hell, I wasn’t even thirty-something.
“I’m good, but thanks,” I said with a polite smile. Fuck, I felt old.
“If you change your mind, let me know. We also have a great menu the kitchen does up, if you’d like a menu,” the guy offered.
“Maybe later. Thanks.” I nodded and glanced around the crowded brewery.
There were people of all ages. Men and women ranging from twenty-one to sixty-five, it seemed.
The whole town of Moonlit Pines seemed to be bustling and about to burst at the seams the moment I drove in from a couple of towns over.
What the hell am I doing here? When was the last time I’d even stepped into a brewery?
Much less one in a small mountain town the night before some damn speed dating event that kicked off a series of Valentine’s Day activities to get all the singles involved hooked up over the weekend before the holiday.
I felt… desperate.
I had to be if I let my sister Courtney talk me into this shit.
But she’d known how to guilt trip me into doing what she wanted. Always did. One look at me with those damn blue eyes like a sad little puppy, and like usual, I caved. It didn’t help that my own kid, my seventeen-year-old daughter, Cassie, was in on her shenanigans to plot against me.
But I knew why my daughter wanted me to find someone.
Since she’d started high school, we had one rule at my house: no dating until she graduated. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her or her taste in guys. It was just that I wanted her to do better than her old man.
That is ultimately what every parent wants, no?
I was a dumbass kid in school, one who thought he knew better and didn’t need to graduate high school in order to chase his dreams. Five years later, I’d returned to Steele Springs, broke and with my tail between my legs, much to my parents’ dismay.
Not that they said a thing to me. They simply let me stay at home while I worked on getting my shit together.
And I had to admit, I’d done well for myself.
Got my GED, went to college, and got my degree while I’d worked construction.
I’d been in a good place when I met Carol.
She’d been sweet and bubbly. We hadn’t fallen in love exactly, but we liked to spend time together, and when she turned up pregnant, I asked her to marry me.
To my surprise, she told me she couldn’t do that just because we were about to coparent a child.
And as crappy of a human being as this was going to make me sound, it was honestly the best thing that could have happened to us.
We raised Cassie together in Steele Springs.
Carol had even met the love of her life and got married and had two other little kids.
Siblings for my daughter. And watching Carol with her family made me honestly happy for her and glad she’d turned me down.
I’d dedicated every waking day to my kid and my work.
And at forty-five, with my daughter in her senior year of high school and my landscaping business thriving, it felt like life had passed me by.
At the end of a heavy workday, I walked into the spacious place I’d sweat and bled to own, only to find it was too empty and too quiet.
Especially when Cassie was staying with her mom.
In a couple of months, my daughter would be off to college, and both her mom and I knew we’d be lucky if she stayed in the same state.
I was alone and felt it.
Maybe that’s why, when my sister brought up this speed dating thing, despite my knee-jerk reaction to turn it down, I’d let her convince me. Well, her and Cassie both got on me about taking a chance.
Take a risk, Dad, I could hear Cas say in my head. It’s never too late for love. That made a knot form in my belly. I’d dated. I might have never fallen in love, but maybe some people weren’t meant to find that one person who was meant to be theirs?
Yeah, Caleb, it’s time to get your life going, Courtney had added, but she was always a little dramatic.
According to my sister, I’d taken one failure way too seriously and decided to never try again.
I scowled at the reminder. It wasn’t that I never tried again.
I did. My landscaping business proved that.
Not that Courtney agreed with me. I picked up my phone and called my daughter.
“Hello?” Cassie’s voice sounded through the line, and relief washed over me. I’d known my sister and daughter had made it to their destination safely, but we hadn’t talked.
“Hey, kid, how are you?” I glanced around the brewery, watching people drink and laugh a little too much.
“Good.”
“Did you and your aunt get to Pinehaven okay?” I scratched the back of my neck. Why does it feel like the place is overflowing with way too many bodies?
“I’m pretty sure you already tracked us and know we’re all settled at the hotel.” I grunted because I had a strict rule about lying. We didn’t lie to one another. Ever.
“The room okay?”
“It’s great. It has a view of a lake,” Cas shared, the smile clear in her voice.
“Nice.” I smiled. “You got all your stuff? Your cheer—“
“Dad, are you okay?” she asked, not bothering to hide the concern that laced her voice.
“Yeah, I’m good.” I tried to sound like I was having a good time, but I doubted it came across well enough. “Just having a drink at the brewery.”
“Sounds like they have karaoke going on,” she observed. I made a face because the woman up on the stage sounded like she was skinning a cat alive. But for some damn reason, everyone listening was either cheering her on or singing along.
“Yup,” I muttered.
“You should go up there. Show them your singing chops,” she suggested. I frowned.
“I don’t have chops,” I muttered as my lips twitched. But it seemed Cas was too astute for her own good.
“You promised you’d try,” she reminded me gently, her voice softer. Probably so her aunt wouldn’t hear our conversation and get into our business.
The one and only flimsy excuse I had that I’d thought would be my saving grace when it came to this speed dating thing was Cassie being the cheer captain.
They had a competition a couple of towns over in the opposite direction of Moonlit Pines she couldn’t miss.
Pinehaven was a nice small touristy town with tons of hotels and big enough venues to hold a cheer competition of that size.
Her mom, stepdad, and two half-sisters were traveling this month, and I was the one who would have to take her.
In walked Courtney to the rescue so I could still attend this thing.
If it was this crowded at a brewery that was more than a few thousand square feet—seriously, the place looked like a literal factory on the outside—I could only imagine how packed with bodied the speed dating event would be. Or worse, the bachelor and picnic basket auctions.
“Dad? You there?” Cassie called out.
“Who all has arrived?” I asked in an attempt to change the subject.
Part of me wanted to stay in my hotel room.
Maybe go fish at the lake instead of trying to find someone to date.
God, when did dating become this complicated?
Nowadays, everyone met on apps. Whether it was swiping up, down, left, right, it was all the same idea.
My head started to hurt. I was too old for that shit.
“Oh, you know… the usuals.” There was something to my kid’s voice that made me still.
She was up to something.
“The girls on the team. Oh! Jane and Heather are in the rooms right next to mine and Aunt Court’s.
All the coaches. Umm, some of the football guys,“ she said quickly.
“And you remember that hair and makeup—“ My daughter actually thought she could distract me from the bombshell she’d dropped on me? Did she think I was born yesterday?
“What?” I asked.
“The hair and make—“
“No, you said football guys. Which football guys?” I asked as calmly as I could manage. I had a feeling I knew just which football guy had headed to Pinehaven to support the cheer squad. Probably the same one who had been showing up to dinner and hanging out with her at the library for tutoring.
“Dad,” she groaned, and my eyes shut.
Fuck. I’d been set up by my kid.
And I would bet the deed to my house it was all my sister’s idea.
“What football player, Cassandra Anne Walker?”
“Dad—“
“Cass?”
“It’s Mace.” Mace. The tall quarterback who had allegedly been getting tutored by my daughter, only for me to find out the kid was in the running as class valedictorian.
Mace, the teenage man boy who was as tall as me and probably weighed as much as I did, who was all cut up with muscles only an eighteen-year-old kid could have.
“You know the rules, Cass,” I muttered.
“Dad—“ That headache that had slowly started to tick away at my temple picked up speed. Cassie knows the rules.
“We have one rule. You’re allowed to date when you graduate,” I repeated for the umpteenth time.
“Dad—“
“No exceptions.”
“Mom doesn’t agree with—“
“I don’t care. Mom might want you to throw away your future but—“ I immediately regretted my words. Carol loved Cass more than life itself.
“You’re impossible,” she whispered in a tone I’d never heard from her before.
“Just because you’re all alone and too stubborn and scared to try to meet someone new, that doesn’t mean everyone around you needs to be, too.
” It felt like a knife had been lodged in my back.
“If you gave Mace just three minutes of your time, without you glaring or spouting off rules that make no sense, you would see that.”
“Cassie, this isn’t up for discussion.” I hated how much I sounded like my own hardheaded father.
“Shocking,” she clipped. Lines formed between my eyes. “Nothing is ever up for discussion.”
“That’s not tru—“