“Clearly.” I got off the couch and wandered over to the sliding door. Pulling it open, I stepped onto the patio, feeling like I could use some fresh air. “So then what happens? Does the cat die? Or does the ogre get over himself and help the princess?”
“I don’t know yet. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.”
I glanced over at Winnie’s patio and thought about kissing her the night we’d met. I’d been so drawn to her—I still was. Now I’d never feel those lips on mine again. “Well, let me know how it ends.”
“I will. Can I talk to Freddie Purrcury?”
I frowned. “No.”
“Why not?”
“He’s being rude.”
“What did he do?”
“He’s ignoring me.”
She laughed. “He only likes it when we’re there. Want to talk to Luna?”
“Yes. I love you. Goodnight.”
“I love you too, Daddy. Night.”
Luna came on a few seconds later. “Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Winnie’s not gone yet, is she?”
I swallowed hard. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay good, because we want to give her a going-away gift. We saw something purrfect at the store,” she said with a giggle. “Will you take us to get it?”
“Yeah.” I closed my eyes, the ache of missing her already deep in my bones. “It will have to be Wednesday when I get you. I’m pretty sure she leaves the next day.”
“Okay.”
We chatted for a few more minutes, then said goodnight. I stayed outside for a little while, watching it grow darker.
If I hadn’t broken things off, Winnie and I would probably be together right now. Maybe I’d be helping her pack. Maybe we’d be eating dinner at my place. Maybe we’d be in bed, taking advantage of every last minute we had before she left.
My body warmed thinking about it, and I was tempted to go knock on her door. Apologize. Tell her the truth. Make her understand that I’d only lied to protect her—because that’s what I did when I loved someone. I protected them.
But in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to do it, and I went back inside alone.
Justin and I arrived at work Tuesday at the same time and parked next to each other. As soon as we got out of our cars, I held up my hands in surrender. “I know, I know. I’ll apologize to Bree.”
He nodded. “Good.”
“Does she hate me?”
“No. She feels bad. She thinks she said things that pissed you off so much, you’ll never speak to her again.”
“She did piss me off. But only because she knows how to push my buttons.”
“Sisters are good at that.” We started walking toward the station. “So what happened with Winnie?”
“We broke it off.”
“Mutual decision?”
I frowned. “Not exactly. She had it in her head that we could try long-distance or something.”
“And you really don’t want to?”
“No, Justin! I’m not her fucking high-school boyfriend. She’s not going away to college—she’s moving to another state. She took a job there.”
“Maybe she didn’t know you wanted her to stay.”
“There was no way I could’ve asked her to stay.”
“Why not?” Justin asked as we reached the building. “I told Bree I was going to marry her on our second date.”
“You guys are different.” I paused at the door without opening it, staring at my reflection in the glass. “It wouldn’t have worked for us. She’s too young for me. We’re at completely different stages of life. I’ve already done the marriage and family thing, and I fucked it up. Now I’m trying to be the best possible single dad I can be, and I’ve got no room in my life for anything else.”
“Okay.”
“Asking her to give up her dream job just to be with me when I can’t offer her the future she wants would have been unfair.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not because I’m scared.”
He hesitated. “Okay.”
“No matter what my sister says. It’s not because I’m scared. It’s because I’m strong.”
My brother-in-law remained silent.
I kept staring at myself in the glass. “I’m not in love with her. I don’t need her in my life. I’ll be fine without her.” I swallowed. “Eventually.”
“Okay, brother.” Justin put a hand on my shoulder. “Maybe you should go inside and scrub some toilets or something. It’ll take your mind off this.”
I grabbed the door handle and yanked it open.
Hallie grabbed the coffee mug off the shelf at the gift shop and held it up. “See Daddy? Isn’t it cute?”
It was cute. It had a cartoon of a cat with a thick Freddie Mercury mustache on it, wearing tight pants and a yellow jacket, one paw in the air, one holding a mic stand. Beneath the drawing it said Don’t stop meow. But I couldn’t even smile. “Yeah.”
“It’s so that she won’t forget us,” said Luna excitedly, bouncing around and knocking into things on the shelves. “Every day she can use her mug and think of us.”
I cleared my throat. “She’ll love it. Come on, before you break something.”
We paid for the mug and left the shop, wandering down the block toward the car. My feet felt heavy and slow as I dragged them through the fallen leaves on the sidewalk. A small moving truck had been parked in Winnie’s driveway all morning, and I’d been fucking miserable watching all her furniture disappear inside it.
“Can we bring it over to her when we get home, Daddy?” Luna asked, scuffing her heels through the crunchy brown and yellow leaves.
“If she’s there.”
“I hope she is!” Hallie hurried ahead to the car and tugged at the door handle. “Let’s hurry.”
When we pulled into the complex, we saw that Winnie’s garage door was open, and she was loading a suitcase into her trunk.
At the sight of her, my heart caromed in my chest and I nearly side-swiped another vehicle—I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She wore jeans and a fuzzy white sweater that looked soft and cozy. Her hair was tucked into a nest on the top of her head. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and hold her close, bury my face in her neck and beg her not to go. Tearing my eyes away, I pulled into our garage and turned off the car. Took a deep breath.
“Can we give it to her now, Daddy?” Hallie was already unbuckling her seatbelt.
“I guess so.” Steeling myself, I helped Luna out of the car. They grabbed the gift shop bag and went racing out of the garage.
Slowly, I collected their backpacks from the back seat, stuck them inside the back hallway, and made my way out of the garage. As I walked across to Winnie’s driveway, I could hear a delighted squeal of surprise—Winnie’s—and childish laughter.
“Oh my goodness, I love it!” Winnie’s entire face was lit up as she looked at the mug. “Thank you so much.”
I watched as she gave them each a hug, feeling jealous and hating myself for it. She noticed me approaching over Hallie’s shoulder, and her face changed immediately, the smile fading into nothing.
“Hey, Dex,” she said coolly, placing the mug back in the bag.
“Hey, Win.” I stuck my hands in my pockets. “You like your gift?”
“I love it.” She looked at the girls before smiling again and holding the bag to her chest. “I promise to use it every day. And I’m so happy you came by, because I have something for you too.”
Hallie and Luna exchanged an excited glance. “You do?”
“Yes. Want to come inside?”
They looked at me. “Can we, Daddy?” Hallie asked.
“Sure. I can wait out here.”
Winnie met my eyes, hers carefully neutral. “You can come in too.” She shrugged. “If you want.”
Her icy demeanor was making me angry—I wanted to take her by the shoulders and kiss her until she loved me again—but I nodded and followed them through the garage into her condo.
The place was almost completely empty.
“Your stuff is all gone!” Luna said.
“Yeah, the moving guys were here this morning and got it all loaded up.” Winnie sounded a little wistful.
“But where’s Piglet?” Hallie sounded worried.
“She’s here.” Winnie smiled. “She’s been hiding out in the pantry all day because of all the commotion. You know how she is with strangers.”
“But we’re not strangers,” Luna said adamantly. “We’re friends.”
“Maybe she’ll come out if you ask her.”
Luna went over to the pantry and got down on her knees, while Hallie continued to look around. “Is your bed still here?”
“Nope. My bed is on its way to Rhode Island.” She smiled ruefully. “I have to sleep at my parents’ house tonight.”
“You could sleep at our house,” Hallie offered. “Daddy can sleep on the couch. You might not even hear him snoring down there.”
Winnie and I exchanged a glance—did I imagine the flicker of warmth?
“Thanks,” Winnie said, “but I’ll be good in my old room. Since it’s my last night here, my family wants to be with me.”
I wanted to be with her on her last night here—I wanted it so badly I had to press my tongue to the roof of my mouth or I was going to say it aloud.
Luna came out of the pantry holding Piglet. “She let me pick her up,” she said softly.
“Good job.” Winnie smiled at Luna. “She knows you now.”
“Do you think she’ll miss us?”
“Definitely. So you better be sure to email me, okay? I’ll read your messages out loud to her. And send pictures too, so I can show her.” Winnie went over to the counter and picked up two little white plastic bags. “Here. I have something for each of you.”
Hallie went rushing over, and Winnie handed her one of the bags. After Luna gently set Piglet on her feet, she eagerly reached for the other.
“Oooooh!” Hallie pulled bright blue nail polish from the bag along with a pair of fluffy lavender socks and a little notebook with a cat on the cover. “Thank you!”
“For when you want to show off your toes and when you want to be cozy,” Winnie said with a smile. “And for writing your stories.”
Luna stuck her hand in her bag and pulled out cotton candy pink polish, fluffy white socks, and a box of princess Band-Aids. “Thank you! Now I don’t have to wear Daddy’s boring brown ones.”
“And if you run out,” Winnie said, “just let me know. I’ll send you another box.”
Luna threw her arms around Winnie’s waist and Hallie followed suit. Knocked off balance, Winnie laughed and embraced them. I stood ten feet away with my arms folded over my chest feeling sorry for myself.
“I wish you didn’t have to go,” Hallie said.
“Me too,” added Luna. “Are you sure you have to?”
Winnie’s eyes closed a moment. “I’m sure.”
“But don’t forget us, okay?”
“I won’t.” Releasing them, Winnie took a breath. “I should probably get going. I have to drop Piglet off at my mom’s house, and then I’m meeting a friend for dinner.”
“Come on, girls.” I gestured for them to go out the door to Winnie’s garage. “Go on back to our place. I want to talk to Winnie a moment.”
Thankfully, they didn’t argue. Chattering about their new nail polish, they went outside, pulling the door shut behind them.
She stood across the kitchen from me, legs together, her arms wrapped around herself, hands lost inside the big sleeves of her sweater. That carefully cool expression was gone, replaced by eyes that glistened with tears and a trembling lower lip. My gut instinct was to embrace her, and I took a step forward.
She put out one hand. “Don’t. Please. There’s nothing you can say at this point that won’t hurt, and I’m already thirty seconds away from a really embarrassing ugly cry.”
“God, Winnie.” Defeated, because she was right—there wasn’t anything I could say that wouldn’t hurt—I stood there with my chest caving in. “This sucks. I don’t want to leave it this way between us.”
“I don’t either, but I can’t help the way I feel, just like you can’t help the way you don’t.”
“But what if—what if it’s not just about the way we feel?” Desperate, I took another step closer to her. “What if it’s just that the things we want are too different?”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re so young, Winnie. You’re so young and so beautiful, and you have so much of your life in front of you. You want all these things, and you deserve them all, including your dream job and someone who can devote himself completely to you.” Closing the gap between us, I cradled her face in my hands, my eyes burning. “And as much as I might wish I could be that guy, I can’t. No matter how I feel, I can’t.”
“You won’t.” Tears clung to her lashes.
Swallowing hard, I shook my head.
She pushed my arms down. “Then what are you doing here?”
“I don’t know.” I closed my eyes. “I guess I was hoping we could at least say goodbye as friends.”
A solitary tear slipped down her cheek, and she didn’t wipe it away. “I need more time before I can be your friend.”
I nodded, understanding.
“Take care of yourself, Dex.”
“You too.” My voice was barely a whisper. Forcing myself to walk away, I went to the door and hesitated, my back to her. I swallowed hard. “I lied to you.”
“What?”
“I lied to you when you asked me how I felt. I said I didn’t love you.”
I heard her quick inhale, and that was it.
I pushed the door open and walked out.
Twenty-Four
Winnie
“It was awful.” Seated at the island in Abelard’s kitchen, I blew my nose in a soggy tissue. “I wish he hadn’t even come over. I made it all day long without crying, and now I can’t stop.”
“Why’d you even let him in?” Ellie flipped our sandwiches in the pan. I’d begged her to make me one of her gourmet grilled cheeses for dinner. I needed comfort food.
“I told you, he was with the kids.” I went over to the trash, threw my tissue away and grabbed another one from the box on the counter. “They’d given me a gift and I had one for them. What was I supposed to do, make him wait in the driveway?”
“Yes.” Ellie turned down the gas under the pan and poured two glasses of red wine.
“Well, I couldn’t. He looked all sad and hot at the same time.”
Ellie sipped her wine and studied me. “Do you think he was telling you the truth about his feelings?”
“I don’t know.” I blew my nose one more time and tossed out the tissue. “But what reason would he have for saying he lied? Just to mess with me?”
“No.” She thought for a moment. “But it seems kind of selfish of him to drop that bomb on you and run away.”
“I don’t think that was his original intention.” I went back to my chair and dropped into it. “I think he only meant to ask me if we could be friends and it . . . escalated.”
“Because being friends with someone you’re in love with always works so well.” Ellie checked the sandwiches and turned off the gas.
“He didn’t exactly say he was in love with me.”
“Based on what you told me, I think he made it clear.” Ellie lifted our sandwiches from the pan with a spatula, setting them on a wooden cutting board. “He loves you, but he doesn’t think he can handle being the guy who loves you. It’s fucked up, but it’s clear.”
“Yeah.” I sniffed. “This is a new one, huh? A guy breaking it off because he does love me, not because he doesn’t?”
“It’s not your fault,” she said loyally. “Those unavailable asshole types really know how to get under your skin.”
“I guess.” I fidgeted in my chair. “But he was so different than those guys. He wasn’t a
selfish jerk. He sewed my dress, and he brushed my hair, and he cooked for me—badly, but he tried—and he’s so protective and brave and determined to be a good father . . . he isn’t an asshole deep down, Ellie. I know he isn’t.”
She eyeballed me over her shoulder. “Don’t tempt me to like him again. I don’t want to.”
I bit my lip. “He rescued children from a burning house.”
“Goddammit, Winnie.” Ellie pulled a big knife from the block on the counter and sliced each sandwich in half. White cheese oozed out over thick slices of bacon.
Despite my broken heart, my mouth watered. “What kind is this again?”
“This is bacon and brie with peach bourbon jam.” She licked her fingers. “And it’s so good, it’s going to make you forget all about hot single dads who rescue children from burning houses.”
“And sew.”
“And sew.” Ellie placed each sandwich onto a plate next to a pile of salad greens tossed with vinaigrette.
“And adopt cats.”
She grimaced as she set one plate in front of me. “And adopt cats.”
“And have magic hands and big dicks and give you multiple orgasms every time.”
Ellie shook her head. “You’re killing me.”
“Sorry. I had to get it out.” I picked up my sandwich. “But this looks delicious and it’s going to make everything all better. Dexter who?”
She laughed as she poured us more wine. “I mean, it might not give you multiple orgasms, but it is a damn good sandwich.”
After dinner, Ellie walked me out to my car and hugged me goodbye. “I’ll see you in two weeks,” she said, “and I’ll miss you like mad in between.”
“Same. Thanks for dinner—and for always making me feel better.”
“Of course.” Releasing me, she folded her arms over her chest. “You gonna be okay?”
I nodded, happy that my throat didn’t close up. “Yes. I have my family, I have you, I have my cat, I have a new job waiting for me—how much more can I ask for?”
“You can ask for anything,” she said fiercely. “And you’d deserve it.”
Ignite: A Grumpy Single Dad Romance Page 24