“Then I’ll consider myself lucky,” Jenni smiled.
If you don’t stop smiling, I’ll have to kiss you.
I quickly pushed that thought to the back of my mind. What the fuck, Alex?
“We’ll see you around,” I said instead as she unlocked the door and pushed her way in.
“Sam’s always having breakfast at the diner,” she replied. “You guys should join him. Our eggs are to die for.”
I chuckled, knowing well that Kelly would probably be pulling me out of bed tomorrow just for that. I wondered what excuse my daughter would make up so she wouldn’t look too desperate.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You do that,” Jenni smiled. “And thank Sam for me. He didn’t have to pick up the check.”
“He’s old school,” I said. “He’d never let a lady pay for her own meal, not while he had a penny in his pocket.”
“Thank him for me anyway,” she said and waved as the doors closed behind her.
I waited until she was out of sight, watching her skip up the stairs before turning back to the truck. My mind was racing, doing summersaults in my head, and I looked back at the glass doors as if expecting her to come back down. I shook my head angrily, forcing myself to keep moving, trying to understand what hell had gotten into me.
Smitten, Mr. DEA?
It wasn’t Janice’s voice this time, but my father’s, and when I looked up I could see him smiling at me from behind the wheel, like he knew some secret I didn’t.
Or do you?
Or did I, indeed. Dinner really had been fun, and I hadn’t felt that relaxed around someone in a long time. She was funny, handled herself well, and knew exactly what to say to win you over. My father was already infatuated by her, something he had no shamed in admitting when he called her ‘the daughter he never had’. And she was definitely on Kelly’s favorites list. So, was it really all that surprising that I would be attracted to her, too?
Too many walls, buddy. Gotta knock a few down.
True, but it had taken years to build those, and tearing them down felt like throwing away a lifetime’s effort. Besides, it wasn’t like she was available, even if her current paramour was an ass that needed to be brought down from his ivory tower. For the life of me, I could not tell what the fuck she saw in Garth Liston, but to each his own. It was not my place to voice an opinion on that, and I was not in the habit of meddling in other people’s business.
But, I did have to agree with my father. Garth felt like bad news, and it didn’t need the instincts of a DEA agent to figure that much out.
We drove home in silence, Samuel with a wide smile on his face, Kelly in the backseat and lost in her phone once again. I didn’t want to bring up dinner with either of them, and talking about what had happened with Garth seemed like a conversation for another time. Besides, I had a feeling the discussion might bring out the worst in both me and my father, and I didn’t want Kelly in the middle of it.
When we got home, my father disappeared into his room with a cheery good night, and I made sure Kelly settled in for the night. Unlike her father, she had changed the sheets on the bed and had already turned the room into her own. Got that from her mother, I thought to myself, a little impressed.
“So, when are you going to ask her out?” Kelly asked me as she jumped into bed and pulled the covers up to her waist, telephone in hand.
I snatched the phone away and put on the night stand, a ritual we went through every night. I had read something about terrible sleeping habits if you’re on your phone before going to bed.
“Ask who out?”
“You know who,” Kelly squinted at me.
“For starters, let’s agree that there are certain rules to this sort of thing,” I said. “Like, not asking someone out who is already dating?”
“Oh, come on, she hates that guy,” Kelly protested.
“You don’t know that,” I said, “and it’s none of our business.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Loud and clear, thank you Sherlock.” She reached for her phone and I pushed it away. “Second of all, I have no place for another woman in my life. You take up most of that anyway.”
“Wow, using your daughter as an excuse,” Kelly nodded. “Do they teach you that in the DEA?”