Rick commandeered the remote and hit Play, grabbing hold of the chair as he made his way slowly back to the froufy-poofy sofa to sit beside her. “We’ve got to do something about the size of your TV.”
“What’s wrong with the size of my television?”
“You need a magnifying glass to see the screen.”
“Excuse me,” she sniffed, “but twenty-seven inches is plenty respectable. I assume you’re one of those wide-screen plasma guys.”
He grunted a respectable ugh.
“Now thump your chest. Come on. Give it a good thump along with that grunt.”
Rick pitched a handful of popcorn in his mouth and fought back the urge to, to…what? Kiss her again? No. More than that he wanted to charge out of here and set things right for her. Instead, he was stuck watching freaking movies and eating chestnut stuffing for the next thirty-six or so hours. But then, keeping her calm had to count for something.
Damn. He was now her babysitter.
She had to hate that as much as he’d hated having sitters. Must be the holiday making him so morbid. And the phone call he had to make.
He looked forward to talking to his daughter…and he didn’t. He would have to lie. That was never fun.
Not much longer, he promised himself.
“Quarter for ’em.” Nola’s voice cut through.
“What?” he asked.
“Quarter for your thoughts. I figured a penny would only buy me a grunt, what with the way prices have gone up and such. So I hedged my bets with a twenty-five cent request.”
He couldn’t think of a reason not to tell her. “I have a daughter.”
Her pretty blue eyes blinked fast. She seemed surprised. “Oh, I imagine I should have guessed… There’s no reason I shouldn’t have… Um, oh. Anyhow. How old is she?”
“Fifteen.”
“Do you have a picture?”
He pulled his wallet from his back jeans pocket and flipped it open to one of Lauren a year ago. Poor kid looked like him. He thought she was perfect and knew she would grow into a stunning woman, but his ex had let him know all about Lauren’s self-image struggles—which always translated into requests for more money for a beauty treatment or clothes to make Lauren feel better about herself.
He thought backing off and letting the kid be a kid would make her feel better. But what did he know?
“You’re going to have to beat the boys off with a stick,” Nola proclaimed and won a piece of his heart for seeing his kid the way he did.
How interesting that Nola could see what Lauren’s own mother couldn’t. “Not as effective as I used to be with the intimidation factor, but yeah, I think I can keep my daughter safe.”
Or he intended to be able to soon. Focus, dude. Focus.
She passed his wallet back. “You must have been young when you had her.”
“Lindsay and I got married right out of high school.” He tucked the folded leather into his back jeans pocket and tried not to think about the fact that he’d added a condom to his wallet again this past week.
“You worked through college?”
“Both of us did. It wasn’t easy.” Not by a long shot. But they’d had a lot in common then, same background and family friends. He still didn’t understand what had gone wrong, other than too much time apart. And if he couldn’t understand, then how could he try again? Damn. “We knew the odds were against us from the start. Then the TDYs piled on and Lindsay met someone else. I’d seen it happen so many times to my pals and still I was surprised.”
“And hurt.”
Only a robot wouldn’t be hurt when a marriage fell apart and as much as he tried to keep his feelings in check, he was far from robotic.
“I’m sorry if I overstepped there. I’ve been in the divorce war trenches… Well, I’m sorry.”