Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Two weeks later
West
E verything was coming up roses, or whatever the damn saying was.
Today was Monday, my first day back at work after the weeklong trip we’d squeezed in.
I’d just dropped off all three of the girls for their first day of school—Nova in her second year of preschool and the twins in second grade—so I was a few minutes late for work.
Levi expected it. I drove toward the office for a post-vacation meeting with him.
My hard work on Presley’s home renovation project had paid off. I’d gotten the promotion the week after it was finished. Better yet, so had Nick.
Levi had made us both foremen, saying he needed leadership as the projects kept coming in, and he’d committed to growing the company. We now had two full-time crews and were booked through the end of the calendar year. With the promotion came a healthy raise that I was thankful as hell for.
Presley was true to her word. I’d received the remaining balance on her coffee shop within three days of emailing her the invoice. As planned, I’d used the money for our first-ever family vacation.
Instead of choosing one of the places the girls were lobbying for—Colorado, the Grand Canyon, and Chicago—I’d chosen a neutral location they’d all love.
We’d road-tripped to the Florida panhandle and spent six days on the beach.
We nearly had to rent a trailer to haul back all the shells the girls collected, not to mention the souvenirs.
Witnessing their first experience with the ocean was something I’d never forget. Their sheer joy, their wonder at its vastness, their shrieks as they dipped their toes into the saltwater… Worth every minute of Are we there yet, Daddy?
We’d gone on a dolphin tour and a sunset cruise. We’d eaten at beachside restaurants and taken picnics to the beach. We’d swum at the hotel pool every day and built sandcastles on the shore. The girls had thanked me countless times for taking them.
I couldn’t have asked for a better experience for our first trip as a family of four.
As many good memories as we’d chalked up though, I could fully acknowledge that my heart had only been fifty percent in it. Just admitting that to myself made me want to punch things.
I parked at Dawson Construction and headed inside, forcing the scowl off my face. The girls had accused me of being sad for the past two weeks, an accusation that bowled me over because I’d thought I was hiding my inner bullshit from the world.
Kids picked up on all the shit you didn’t want them to.
“There he is,” Levi said as I walked into the office. “Welcome back, West. You were missed.”
“Didn’t much care for covering my crew, huh?”
“I’d gotten used to bouncing between the two crews, running sales calls, and filling in wherever you all needed. How’d we do this with half the employees before?”
“We had half the work then. Everything go okay?”
“Couple weather delays. Both crews are behind schedule.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Your guys are trying to get the roof on the Adler addition before the next round of storms. They started thirty minutes early today.”
“Good to know. Supposed to be clear till tomorrow night?”
“That’s what they’re saying,” he answered as he stood at his desk, gathering papers and picking up his tablet. “Hey, the coffee shop opened today. You want to head there and get a cup of joe while we discuss business?”
Damn. I’d seen on the Tattler app that today was Presley’s soft opening, but my plan had been to stay far away from The Bean Counter.
“I’m not so sure I’d be welcome there,” I said on a defeated exhale. It killed me to admit that out loud, but if I didn’t put it out there today, I suspected it’d keep coming up.
Levi, who wore a Dawson Construction ball cap as he did close to three hundred sixty-five days a year, looked up from his desk and tilted his head at me. “What the hell, Aldridge?”
I sat down heavily, figuring it was time to come clean. I wasn’t worried about the job aspect. I just did not want to revisit how much I’d fucked up in my personal life.
My boss watched me closely as he approached the round meeting table and sat across from me. “I suspected you had something going on with her,” he said.
“Not the night of the wedding. It started after that.”
“Not gonna lie,” Levi said with a half grin. “I can see how that could happen. She’s quite a force of nature and looks good while she’s at it.”
Levi was nearing forty, heterosexual, single, and had eyes, so his observation didn’t surprise me.
I merely nodded, unable to find it in me to smile back.
His grin disappeared as he watched me. “Your face tells me it wasn’t just a night or two of fun.”
“It was supposed to be a night or two of fun.”
“She hurt you in the end?”
I scoffed, not making eye contact. “You ready to get this meeting over with?”
“Not quite yet.” He leaned his elbows on the table, his attention fully on me. “You were a grouchy son of a bitch the week before your trip, even after you found out about the promotion and the raise. I’m finally putting two and two together.”
I scowled. He wasn’t the only one who’d told me I was being a dick that week. Plus the sad label from my daughters. I knew it was true, but I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of it.
“I fucked up. I hurt her ,” I said. “She wanted more but I said no.”
He studied me so intently it was all I could do not to explode.
“Because of your girls,” he guessed. He knew my story. All the guys who’d worked here last year when April moved out knew my story. Understood my regret for getting my daughters hurt. “Except you’re hung up on her.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. The dude was spot on, but it sucked extra to hear it out loud. “I thought I could walk away and be okay with it.”
He blew out a breath. “Relationships are hard enough when it’s just two people trying to figure it out.
You throw in three kids…” He shook his head.
“Exponentially complicated. I don’t have any kids, and I sure as hell don’t have a gleaming track record with relationships, but I know my brother, Max, had a hard time letting Harper in because he was worried about his son. ”
“They seem to be doing okay,” I said, remembering how happy Danny had been at Max and Harper’s reception.
“But you don’t think it would be okay to invite Presley into your daughters’ lives?”
I braced my elbows on the table and ran my hands over my face, feeling so damn tired, as if I hadn’t slept for a month. “My history with relationships says inviting her into our life would get my daughters hurt again in the end.”
“How do you figure? Because April didn’t work out?”
“April. Flora. I rushed in with both of them, and you know where it got me.”
“I also knew April and Flora well enough to say with confidence there were reasons they didn’t stick, and those reasons weren’t because of you.”
“How do you figure?”
He tilted his head again, the expression on his face looking like I was clueless. “Flora didn’t fit in here. Never even tried to fit in here. She was never going to be happy in Dragonfly Lake.”
“That should’ve changed when she got pregnant.”
“But it didn’t. That’s on her, not you,” Levi said. “I saw how hard you tried to make it work with her, West. You weren’t the weak link. She just wasn’t the right woman for you.”
I snorted. “You’re damn right about that.”
“April was all wrong too.”
“You think?” I said sarcastically. “I rushed in with both of them for different reasons.” I shook my head, wondering if the regret, especially over April, would ever wear off.
The only thing I couldn’t regret was my three daughters, so as much of a mistake as it was to hold on to Flora for too long, it gave me the best parts of my life.
“I make poor decisions with women.” I shrugged, even though I didn’t feel at all nonchalant about it.
“Is Presley a poor decision?” he asked. “Is she the same as the other two?”
“She’s nothing like Flora or April,” I said quickly. When I noticed how he was eyeing me, like he was waiting for shit to get through to my brain, I got his point. “You think I was just with the wrong people before.”
“I know you were with the wrong people before,” he said with a laugh. “You know it too.”
That much was true.
“Question is,” he went on, “is Presley right, and you’re missing it because of your baggage?”
“I wouldn’t know how to tell if she’s right.”
“I’m no expert, but it seems like you have deep feelings for her.”
I glanced at my watch, noting how late it was getting.
My boss wasn’t the first person I’d choose to discuss this with, but then I wasn’t really a fan of discussing it with anyone. And yet I was sick to death of all the shit circling in my head with only me to try to make sense of it.
“Presley and I were supposed to be a simple fling,” I said.
“A one-time fling, if I’m being honest. Long story short, it didn’t work out that way.
We spent a lot of time together working on her shop.
My girls didn’t know we were more than friends, but they started getting attached to her anyway, so I ended it. ”
“Seems like you’re not done with it though,” he said insightfully.
“Seems like I’m a slow motherfucker who took a bit to realize what I feel for Presley is the real thing.”
“You love her?”
“Pretty sure I do. Too fucking bad I figured that out after I hurt her.”
“What’d you do?”
I told him how she’d said she loved me, and I’d responded by ending it. To protect my daughters.
“Your daughters who love her,” he clarified.
I nodded.
“And she likes your girls too?”
Another nod.
“And you’ve caught feelings. And she loves you. West, what the fuck are you doing?”
“I know, man,” I bit out. “I know.”
He was saying all the shit that’d been coalescing in my head for the past few days.
The truth was, my feelings for Presley were different.
I’d been with Flora on and off for more than four years. When she’d finally left for good, my only concern was our daughters. My heart didn’t get broken. It was more like I could finally breathe.
April? It’d been past time for our relationship to end. Had I not been a father, I probably would’ve ended it months earlier than we did.
With Presley?
Fuck. My girls didn’t know anything had changed. They were unharmed by the end of Presley and me. But me? I was fucking wrecked.
“Like I told you, I fucked up, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Fight for her. Try to get her to take you back.”
“I’m not sure if she’ll do that. She was pretty angry last time I saw her.”
“You ever seen a chick flick?” he asked. “This is where they do the grovel.”
I leaned forward and pressed my fingers into my temples. That last Sunday in Presley’s shop, she wouldn’t even answer a simple how-you-doing question. And dragging Magnolia along for the day? Yeah, I’d gotten the message loud and clear.
“Max’s grovel was big and public,” Levi continued.
“I was there. Public declaration in the diner at the height of the breakfast rush.” It’d taken serious balls, but it had worked. “Our situation isn’t the same though.”
Levi shrugged. “Different grovel might be called for.”
I didn’t know the first thing about the different ways to grovel. All I knew was…I needed to try something. I could no longer lie to myself and say we were better off without her, because we weren’t.
Presley was too important to me to not give this my best shot.