The Daddy Box Set

by Claire Adams

  “Very true,” I said, raising my glass. “Like Mom and our new stepfather. Mom has been with two men in her life. The first left her like an idiot, and the second, she just fell madly for, so I guess there is something to be said about finding the perfect one for you. I think for some people, it just happens, though.”

  “Speaking of Mom,” Bella said, grabbing the postcard off the counter. “Have you heard anything more from her?”

  “No,” I sighed. “Just the random postcards we’re getting. I know she deserves every second of this trip, but I miss her. She is the third post of our trinity, and it feels weird without her here, talking about all of this, sipping her wine, and laughing loudly.”

  “I know,” Bella said. “I love you and everything, but it’s weird without the full circle of divinity going on around here.”

  “We are pathetic.” I laughed. “We’re talking about Mom like she died, not like we should be jealous that she is on a whirlwind honeymoon with the love of her life. I’m a bit jealous. I won’t lie.”

  “I’m just jealous of all the food they get to eat.” Bella laughed.

  When my parents got divorced, I was barely old enough to remember, and through the years, my father had stayed at a distance. His visits were sporadic, rarely planned, and when we were together, it always felt forced. I wasn’t a girl with daddy issues, though, as my mother was the queen of single parenting and was able to turn Bella and me into strong, determined women. Still, with Mom just getting married, and Bella having the time of her life on husband number three, it was starting to get my wheels turning.

  I was at that age where people figured I should find a partner and settle down. Now, I wasn’t too much of the girl that gave a damn about societal norms, but I was definitely getting that fire in my belly to start trying to figure out where I wanted to go from there. I had a good business, a strong family, and now, I wanted that romance that I had put on hold for so long. But what was the right path to go? Did Bella really have something there with her “free love, find the ripe apple in the orchard after trying several others” mentality? Was my mother’s traditional, though seldom spoken about, idea of finding that man and building a world around the two of them mentality what was right?

  It was all so confusing for me, especially with no real guide through the wars of love. On one side, I saw the beauty in my mother’s new marriage, and on the other side, I saw the trauma and debilitating heartbreak of divorce, like Ryan’s family. Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum was Bella, and although it seemed so nice to always feel secure about love, I wasn’t sure I could just drift through men like that.

  “In reality, Alissa, life and love are all about seizing that moment when it strikes,” she said. “Don’t let those amazing moments, the ones that feel like they are from a movie, pass you by. It’s better, in my opinion, to hate the outcome in the end, than to spend your life wondering what if. What if I had just kissed him? What if I had said yes? What if I had just taken the chance? I don’t want questions like that.”

  For the first time in our relationship as sisters, Bella had said something I could definitely agree with. I didn’t want to have those questions when I died, those what if’s that people spend their entire lives obsessing over. I wanted to know that I took a chance when it was given, and I did everything I could to make that work. I guessed it was a melding of the two ideas of the women in my immediate family, the forever of working through it, and the whimsy of jumping in headfirst. Thinking about that made Ryan flash through my mind, and I wondered if he was one of those men I would always ask what if about? Ryan could be something completely amazing, but he and I could also be a terrible mistake. That mistake would not just affect me, but the entire family, including that little 7-year-old girl.

  I gulped my wine, frustrated with the fact that my brain wouldn’t settle on one idea. My fears and sensibilities ran through me like wildfire, and I was starting to become concerned that I was destined to be a “what if” kind of girl. Do I take the chance on love or pass it by for something more sensible? But what if I was tired of being sensible?

  Chapter Seven

  Ryan

  It was one of those dark and stormy nights, but not outside so much as in my head. Sitting at the kitchen table in the light of a single table lamp, my senses dulled by the heat of whiskey in my belly, I was definitely dabbling my toe in that all-too-familiar self-inflicted depression. The kind you can see coming, have every ability to stop, but just give into the loathing because sometimes it just feels too good to put off.

  After dinner, I helped Kayla finish up her homework before tucking her into bed and kissing her forehead. She gave me the normal, “I miss Mommy,” routine that she did almost every other night. I was pretty sure that was what sent me into this death spiral that I was in. I came downstairs and pulled out the bottle of Jack I kept in the back of the pantry and flipped on my computer, venturing onto my social media page for the first time in a long time. There were dozens of pictures of Christina and me, and a lot of them with good old Dale. What a bastard. He came into my marriage like a thief and stole shit right out from under me. How could he be okay with a woman that didn’t want to see her daughter anymore? I felt like that kind of woman was destructive and immoral, not the kind of woman I would want to be with. I did find it darkly amusing that as the time frame moved up closer to the date she left me, Dale and Christina moved closer and closer together in all of the pictures.

  I put in Alissa’s name on the search bar and clicked on her smiling profile picture. She was so damn beautiful in a way that I wasn’t used to. I was incredibly attracted to her, and not just because she was ungodly hot, with curves in all the right places, firm, round tits, and pouty lips I could definitely imagine around my cock, but because she was so damn sweet. She smiled at everyone and everything, and even when she looked at me with steamy eyes, I could feel her innocence travel through me. There was no doubt about it. I was attracted as hell to my ex-wife, but that lust was centered around the fire that burned inside of her. I knew that it was hot and steamy and gave me satisfaction in all the ways a young guy wanted, but I also knew that fire had a really good chance of burning the hell out of me if I wasn’t watching closely. I got too comfortable in the heat, and that was exactly what she did: burned me until I was unrecognizable to even myself.

  But Alissa, she was a whole other story, with her kind heart and willingness to give to others to make their lives a little bit easier. She was incredibly intelligent, motivated, successful, gorgeous, and crazy good with Kayla. I had my eye on her for a very long time, and now that I could actually move on it, I was freezing. It was so frustrating that my heart was saying one thing while my mind was screaming about social norms and how people would look down on me for dating my stepsibling. It wasn’t like we grew up together, or we were related in any way. It was driving me nuts that all of this was actually bothering me. I needed to get my head on straight and just decide what I wanted to do.

  All of Alissa’s sweetness aside, it had been quite a while since I had gotten laid. When Christina first left and for about six months after, I would go out to the bars, not every night, but enough to get her off my mind. I had several one-night stands, but nothing to write home about. I always went back to their place and never spent the night. I didn’t want strange women around Kayla, knowing that even though she didn’t understand, just their presence in the house would make her upset. It was a tricky situation. I wanted to get laid, but even more, I wanted to sleep with other women because it made me feel like I was getting back at Christina, even though she had no idea what I was doing. After that six-month period, I pretty much stopped going out and hooking up with girls. I had more important responsibilities to attend to, and Kayla really needed my attention. Besides, it wasn’t like any of these girls had any possibility of becoming anything more than a one-night stand. Not one of them had anything interesting to say.

  Alissa was different, though. I wasn’t interested in ju
st one hot night. I was interested in her as a person, too. I figured that eventually, I was going to start dating again, and eventually, Kayla would get used to the idea. What better way to start that out than choosing someone that she was comfortable with already? I wasn’t sure that was going to make a difference at all to Kayla. She was still in the mode of thinking that her mother was going to come back through the front door at some point. I knew that even if she did, I wasn’t sure her being around Kayla was a very good idea.

  Alissa already loved Kayla, and she was so good with her, and I couldn’t get her off of my mind. Maybe it was the liquor making me so determined to get Alissa, but either way, I liked how it felt to want someone else besides Christina on a deeper level.

  That was it. I had to stop spending my days just thinking about Alissa. I needed to get over the whole “our parents are married” thing and just jump in with both feet. If I’d had these feelings for her for this long, there must be something to it, and I was going to decide right then and there that I wanted to pursue Alissa, no matter how tough it might be for me. The worst she could do would be to let me down, and even though we were going to be in each other’s lives for a long time, I couldn’t see her making it into an awkward or uncomfortable thing. In reality, I knew in my gut that I wasn’t imagining her interest in me. I noticed her blushing the day I came in all hot and sweaty and took off my shirt. In one way or another, she was interested in me. Maybe she was having the same issues with the stepsibling thing. Maybe she was worried I wasn’t over Christina, but either way, the thought had to be there.

  I remember when I was out for drinks with Juan, he gave me some good advice that made sense.

  “You just need to go for it, man,” he said, tossing back the rest of his whiskey sour.

  “Go for what?” I had asked.

  “A relationship. You need to just jump into it. I can tell you’re ready for it.” He said.

  “I know. You’re right, I just don’t know where to begin.” I shrugged. I knew that the longer I sat there mulling it over and obsessing over it, the more chance I had of talking myself right out of happiness. And Juan knew it, too.

  “I know I’m right, that’s why we’re friends.” He had motioned for another drink from the bartender. When she refilled his glass he looked at me. “You need to figure out what she is interested in and involve yourself in those interests.”

  “My problem is figuring out what she is interested in without coming off as the creepy guy. How do you actually ask that question randomly to someone in a normal conversation?”

  He seemed to think for a second before saying, “Maybe ask her to out on a date, breakfast or something like that. Start there and feel your way through the conversation for the perfect moment.”

  I rested my elbows on the table as I thought about our conversation at the bar and ran my hands over my face, feeling the exhaustion from the alcohol and the long day start to surge through me. I pulled my head up and set it in my hand, wondering what Alissa was doing right at that moment, wondering if she was thinking about me as well. I looked over through the kitchen door at the painting hanging on the wall.

  It was huge, probably four feet across and five feet tall, and the colors were striking. It was one of the “new age” art pieces that Christina had fallen in love with when we were together and had just bought the house. Personally, it wasn’t my style, and in fact, I had always hated the damn thing, but she was all about the eclectic style and owning really expensive things so she could tell her friends how expensive they were.

  That being said, I had zero knowledge or skill in decorating, and had I not conceded to letting her take over decorating control, it probably would have looked like a giant man cave with brown leather couches and all sorts of animals over the fireplace. I would have been impressed, the boys would have been impressed, but it would have been unlivable for the women. For me, regardless of whether I liked it or not, it was never unlivable, so I just went with whatever Christina wanted. In reality, I went with whatever Christina wanted for our entire relationship, which was probably part of the reason that I ended up where I was. Nonetheless, I had zero skill in the area of décor, so I was more than happy to pass it off to Christina, and all of my buddies were jealous that while they were curtain and couch shopping with their significant others, I was able to either get caught up on work or lounge around on the new furniture that she had delivered. I felt like it was a win-win situation for me. That was, until Christina was gone, and I was stuck staring at her decorating choices for hours upon hours every day.

  Just as that thought ran through my mind, my eyes widened, realizing that maybe asking Alissa what she was interested in might not be necessary at all. The answer was literally staring me in the face in the form of an extremely loud and obnoxious giant painting on my living room wall. I didn’t know why I didn’t think of this before. Alissa was an interior decorator and owned her own company. I was a newly single man, living in my ex-wife’s torturous design studio. I could totally ask Alissa to give the house a makeover, offer my services to get everything done, and be able to spend some alone time with her.

  I wasn’t sure how Kayla would take to the house being redecorated, but whether she liked it or not, she needed to start moving forward. Living in her mother’s shadow was definitely not helping either one of us. I couldn’t sell the house, but I could make it look completely different than what it had before. Besides, Kayla’s room was still decorated from when she was 5. She would feel better with a completely new room as well, and she could even help in picking out the style she wanted, especially since she was interested in design. Now, all I had to do was figure out the perfect way to bring it up to her so it didn’t sound too businesslike, but still made it look like I was interested in helping her and learn about what she did. I could afford to take a couple days off from work. I hadn’t since Christina had left, and I needed a break before the summer heat hell started and I was in the triple-digit weather, working my ass off.

  I put away the liquor and headed up to bed, formulating my plan as I went. This had to work. I was relying on it to be what got me close to Alissa. I figured, even if she turned me down personally, we would end up with a better living situation, so something good would come out of it either way. Hopefully.

  Chapter Eight

  Alissa

  It was late in the morning, and I was more than happy to be working out of the home office for the day. The woman with the home she’d bought and wanted redone finally made her mind up and ended up loving what I did with the dining room. She allowed me to go nuts with the rest of the house, as long as I took her thoughts into consideration. The men were there painting the house while I was sitting at my home office, ordering all of the furniture that would be going into the house in just a few weeks. This was the really exciting part, where everything started to slowly come together. After the walls, the floors would be done, and then, I would have all the light fixtures changed. Once that was complete, I got to do my magic. I would sweep through the house with all of the rugs and furniture first, and then I would start hanging all of the accents. When I was done, I loved sitting back and staring at the before and after shots right before the big reveal. It was exhilarating on so many levels.

  I grabbed my coffee and headed down the hall to my office, deciding that working in yoga pants and a T-shirt was more than professional enough. My hair was thrown up on top of my head in a messy bun, and I hadn’t even thought of applying any makeup. I sat down at my desk and opened my computer and notebook, excited to start buying the pieces. Before I could type in the first site, my phone rang, and I looked down to see that Ryan was calling me. I hoped that everything was okay. I wasn’t supposed to be watching Kayla at all this week.

  “Hey, there,” I said with blushed cheeks.

  “Hey, how are you?”

  “Good, just sitting down to do some ordering for a client,” I said. “How is my little monster?”

  “Ha,” he said, snor
ting adorably. “She is as feisty as ever.”

  “I really wish I could get through to her,” I said, sighing. “I’m starting to think she just doesn’t like me.”

  “It’s not you, I promise,” he said. “She doesn’t like me at all. She has been through so much over the past year, and she is resentful to adults in general right now.”

  “I can understand that,” I said. “Is she at school?”

  “No,” he replied. “It’s spring break, but I enrolled her in this week-long camp program that the school recommended. It’s like therapy with art. She seems to have liked it so far, but she really doesn’t have a choice since she isn’t old enough to stay home by herself.”

  “Yeah, I can’t remember when my mom left me home alone for the first time,” I replied. “Maybe I was like 14 or so. I know that my older sister babysat me a lot when my mom had to work.”

  “My parents didn’t trust me for a second,” he replied. “When I was old enough to drive, they left me home alone for the first time.”

  “Yeah, my mother didn’t trust my sister, but she trusted me,” I said, laughing. “I’m pretty sure when she was babysitting me, I was really the one making sure the house wasn’t burning down around us. Bella is a bit of a free spirit, and I’m pretty sure I got high by accident when I was about 12 just from hanging out in her room with her and her friends for too long.”

  “I’m pretty sure Kayla is doomed,” he said, laughing. “Between my haphazard brain and her mother’s inability to sit still, she won’t be left alone until she is 18, and even then, I might install a nanny cam to watch over her.”

  “Oh my gosh,” I said, laughing. “That poor girl.”

  I set down my pen and concentrated on our conversation. It was surprising to me how easy talking to Ryan had become. I was never big on talking on the phone with anyone, and I was that girl that was super excited when texting became a thing. With him, though, I could totally see myself spending hours talking about nothing in particular. He was a lot like me with his sense of humor and ease of words, and I found it almost refreshing. I could tell that flutter in my chest was back, especially when I found myself leaning dreamily forward onto my hand and listening to his deep voice talk about Kayla’s accidents and clumsiness as a baby. I had never been the flighty girl that fell all over herself for a guy, but with Ryan, it was like I couldn’t help myself. I was practically drooling.