By the time they left that night, Eric knew with grim certainty that Emma wasn’t going to make this easy on him. She’d set her mind on the fact that he was a non-entity in her life, and would do whatever she had to do to ignore him if she couldn’t drive him away.
He asked Brandon the next morning if he should skip dinner that night, but Brandon made it clear that wasn’t the right choice.
“What if I took her out to dinner one night?”
Brandon considered it and started nodding. “That might not be a bad idea.”
“What’s her favorite?”
“She loves sushi.”
“Okay. I’ll ask her tonight if she’ll let me take her out to dinner, alone, so we can talk.”
“Tell you what, I’ll set the ball up for you to spike over the net. Maybe she won’t say no if I lead in to it.” Brandon patted Eric’s shoulder. “If it means anything, me, Jeff, and Stu sign off on this. And I appreciate you being so patient with Em. But none of us will hold it against you two if you move forward if Em resists.”
“I’m not ready to give up yet.”
“And that’s how I know you’re a good guy.”
That night, Eric drove them to Brandon’s and tried to keep his hopes up. Emma could only hold on to her righteous indignation for so long, right?
Right.
His one bright spot in this whole mess, that Tracey was back in his life and they were having a baby.
Emma acted even chillier, if that was possible. But halfway through dinner, Brandon spoke up. “Eric, do you like sushi?”
He nodded. “I love it.”
“See, Em?” Brandon said. “You guys already have something in common.”
Emma had paused her chewing, staring at her dad. “What?”
“Oh, I haven’t had sushi in a while,” Eric said. “How about I take you out for sushi tomorrow night?”
Emma’s eyes widened as she focused on Eric. “What?”
Grace winced.
“Tomorrow night,” Brandon said. “Sushi. You and Eric. Alone. To give you two a chance to talk and get to know each other.”
It wasn’t a suggestion, and it was delivered with more than a little Dom tone.
Emma apparently recognized that, too. “Fine.”
Brandon smiled at her. “Great. Seven o’clock.” Again, not a suggestion.
“Do you want me to come pick you up?” Eric asked.
“I’ll drive myself.”
Brandon gave Eric a well, it’s sort of a win kind of look.
When it was time to leave, Brandon walked Eric and Tracey out. “Maybe tomorrow will help,” he said. “I think she’s scared that we’re all wrong. She loves sushi. Maybe that will give her a chance to drop her defenses a little.”
“I’m willing to try anything.”
“Thanks again for being patient,” Brandon told him. “That right there proves to me you’re nothing like Pat.” He looked at Tracey. “No offense, hon.”
She sadly smiled. “None taken. This is my fault anyway.”
Brandon pulled them in for a group hug. “We’ll wait the stubborn girl out. She can’t hold out forever. We’ll wear her down.”
But as Eric and Tracey snuggled in his bed that night, he lay awake and wondered if he really did have a chance to win Emma over, or if she was determined to keep fighting them, refusing to accept him in her and Tracey’s lives.
And he refused to make Tracey once again choose someone else over her daughter. He knew if he did, and it hurt her relationship with Emma, she’d never forgive herself.
That was guilt he wasn’t sure he could handle.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Eric nervously drummed his fingers on the table as he awaited Emma’s arrival.
He was under no illusions that how this dinner went would decide Tracey’s future plan of action.
If I hadn’t been an idiot, she’d be my daughter.
As soon as he thought that, he chided himself for it. No, Emma was a unique mix of Tracey and Brandon and how she’d been raised.
It also would poison the well and his relationships with all of them if he didn’t get a handle on his slowly simmering jealousy, that Brandon had the daughter he wished he could have had.
The one thing he’d always wanted to be—a dad—and Brandon got to do that. Even Stuart and Jeff had more of a relationship with Emma than he had, because they’d known her longer, lived with her. And soon she’d be leaving for college, further lessening the time he had to try to forge a bond with her, and with Grace.
All he had that he could definitively lay claim to were shattered hopes, sad memories, two pictures, and an urn.
He wanted Tracey. He wanted to be there, in their baby’s life, raising him or her with Tracey. Midnight feedings and diaper changes and everything. All of it.
Emma arrived fifteen minutes late, and he suspected that was on purpose on her part. Still, he stood when she walked in and he smiled. “Hey, thanks for coming.” He leaned in for a hug, but she awkwardly didn’t hug him back, and he knew that was on purpose, too.
The scowl seemed permanently etched on her face. “Yeah.” She slid into the other side of the booth, grabbed an order sheet and a pencil, and stared down at it.
He sat and caught their server’s attention to come take her drink order. Once she’d left them alone again, he stumbled forward, all of the other adults’ advice ringing in his ears.
“I’m looking forward to coming to your swim meet Saturday. I’ve never been to one before.”
She didn’t tip her head up, but he knew from the way her brow slightly furrowed that she rolled her eyes up far enough to stare at him. “Sure.”
Nervous, he blundered on. “Your mom showed me some videos from the last few. She said you’re really goo—”
“You don’t have to make small talk, okay?” The tip of the pencil hovered over a line. “I’m here, you’re here, we can tell them we had a polite dinner. All right?”
He swallowed, struggling to find a way past her prickly defenses. He got it, and he desperately wanted to prove to her he wasn’t like Pat.
Jeff better than anyone had been able to offer him insight in this way, especially from the way Emma had opened up to him following his Lyme diagnosis.
“I know you don’t want to trust me, and I don’t blame you. I’m not going to waste your time telling you I’m not like Pat, because that’s not how life works. All I’m asking for is a chance to show you I’m not like him.”
She laid the pencil down and raised her head enough to meet his gaze. She looked just like Brandon in that way, same eye color and intensity.
“You’re going to move in together and get married no matter what I say. I’m literally not freaking stupid, so don’t insult my intelligence, okay? I see the way she looks at you. I’ll be out of your hair in a year, and you don’t even have to come over to Dad’s for dinners and stuff if you don’t want to. Happy?”
He forced himself to keep his speech slow, so his voice didn’t tremble and he didn’t trip all over himself and sound like an idiot. He’d never felt less “Domly” in his life. “No, that’s not how this works. I won’t move in with your mom or marry her unless we have your blessings.”
She snorted and looked down at her order sheet again, waving her hand at him. “Whatever.”
He clasped his hands on the table in front of him and stared at them, because it was easier that way, even if he knew it kind of made him a coward. “I’ve always loved your mom. I never stopped loving her. When I met Paige and finally let myself move on, I still loved and missed Tracey, but I knew I’d probably never see her again.
“I’m not going to say I know what you went through with Pat, because that’d be bullshit and we both know that. If it means anything, I did tell your dad that I promise to help him kick Pat’s ass if he ever came near your mom again.”
Another snort. “Don’t need you for that. We have Grace.”
But he didn’t look up. He knew he n
eeded to say all of this, because he doubted he could muster the strength to say it again, or even approach this part of the subject more than this one time with her because it hurt too damn bad to even think about it, much less talk about it.
“The night I lost Paige and the baby, I almost killed myself. I wanted to die. I wanted to be cremated with them, and I was going to do it. But her father, thank god, was a doctor and realized how bad of shape I was in and forced me to admit myself to the hospital so they could medicate me and watch me. And I stayed there for three days before he and his wife were able to convince me that the last thing Paige would have wanted me to do was that.”
Tears fell on his hands and he didn’t bother trying to wipe at his eyes. “Up until that day, I’d always thought that the worst day of my life was the night I let your mother convince me we needed to break up and she walked out of my life. That was the benchmark by which I’d set all others. Even losing my job as a broker wasn’t nearly as bad, if that says anything. I felt it was my fault they died. I was supposed to pick her up from work and drive her to the doctor appointment, but I got hung up at work. Maybe if I’d driven her she wouldn’t have been in the accident and they’d both still be alive.
“I know your mom and I screwed up by not being completely responsible adults that weekend, but I won’t take it back, because it means I have a chance to finally be happy again. And if it means it has to happen by your timetable, then I will do that. Because no matter how hard it is to wait, it cannot compare to the eternity of those three days I spent in the hospital praying to die.”
Only when the server started toward them did he sit back and quickly wiped at his face with his napkin, forcing a smile for the woman and sliding his order slip over to her.
He hadn’t looked at Emma yet, but when she handed her order slip to the waitress, he said, “And this is all on one check. I’m paying.”
Alone again, he took a deep breath and risked looking across the table.
The full force of Emma’s gaze lay heavy on him. She looked so much like Tracey in her face.
Would she have had my green eyes?
It took her a minute to speak. “Can I ask you questions?”
“Sure.”
“Why’d you leave Mom in the first place back then? If you loved her so much, why’d you let her break up with you?”
“Because I was a stupid kid. I was nineteen. And I thought I’d see her again. I thought when I came back for the holidays that I’d be able to talk to her. I didn’t know what I was getting into at school. My plan was to scope things out, jobs, a place to live off-campus, all of that, and talk to her when I came back. But when she moved to Florida, I knew that wouldn’t happen.”
“So why didn’t you go to Florida and look for her? Or call her?”
“She didn’t have a phone, at first. Back then, remember, we didn’t all have cell phones, and land lines were luxuries. We didn’t have Internet all over the place, didn’t all have tablets and laptops. Tablets weren’t even a thing then. No Facebook or Twitter. It was ridiculously easy to lose contact with someone. And I was a broke student. My parents weren’t going to pay for me to come down here looking for her. Her parents damn sure weren’t going to pay for it.”
Emma’s gaze didn’t leave his, but she seemed to hunker down a little in her seat, her posture not as rigid. “So if I tell you that I don’t want you and Mom moving in together until after I leave for college?”
In his lap, his nails painfully dug into his palms, but he nodded. “Then that’s it,” he quietly said. “But I won’t let you interfere with me trying to help your mom raise our baby. If you don’t want a relationship with me, I’ll respect that and do my best to stay out of your way. But I won’t do that to the exclusion of our baby.”
“You live in a hotel. How are you supposed to take care of a baby?”
“I didn’t have time to find a place before all this happened. We’ve been too busy trying to get the store ready to open. And now…I know I need to wait to find a place until you make your decision.”
She scowled. “Why?”
“Because I want you to have input on that, you and Grace, so you guys can help us and be able to find a place you guys like, too. But if that’s your final decision, that we can’t move in together until you go to college, then I’ll start looking for the cheapest place I can find so I can afford to pay for your mom’s expenses when she takes time off when the baby comes. And to hopefully get her a place of her own.”
“Oh, she’s going to move in with me and my dads.”
That knifed through his gut—dads.
Plural.
Two men who hadn’t even raised her earned dad status, and because of the fucker Tracey had been married to, Emma wouldn’t even give him a chance.
Plus, that was news to him.
“Jeff will take care of the baby during the day so she can go back to work,” she added. “Don’t worry, we won’t need your help. You can play superdad on the weekends and pretend to be a good guy.”
He slowly nodded, but didn’t reply.
Wasn’t sure how to reply, quite honestly. Tracey hadn’t said anything about that to him. Neither had Brandon.
Maybe he was more of an outsider to this family than he thought he was.
He was always going to be an outsider to Emma. He could clearly see it now, in stark reality.
“I’m sorry,” he found himself saying.
“What?”
He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but now that he had, he finished it. “I’m sorry she was married to that jerk and he ruined your ability to trust. From the stuff everyone’s told me about him, he sounds like he was a real asshole to you.”
She stared at him. “He was.”
He forced himself to sit back and take a deep breath. Unable to stand the weight of her gaze out of fear he’d start crying again, he stared down at his hands in his lap.
Jeez, what the hell’s wrong with me tonight?
Every instinct told him he should fight, that he should be pushing back, and hard. That this was a kid who had no fucking right to dictate his happiness to him.
Yet he knew if he did that, no way in hell would he ever be with Tracey.
Ever.
Not even after Emma went to college.
“You know, a real man would tell me to go fuck myself.”
He forced his tone to stay low and even. “Sorry to disappoint you, then. I’m not that kind of guy.”
He wasn’t sure if he’d blown this, or if Emma had come into the meeting determined not to give him a chance, but he wasn’t going to compound things by fighting with her. Especially since it seemed she was looking to pick a fight with him.
No telling what she might report back to Brandon and Tracey at that point. At the very least, he would end the evening knowing he’d been the adult and didn’t take the low road.
She pulled out her phone and started texting someone. He didn’t ask who, didn’t interrupt her. It was, in some ways, less stressful than her verbal assaults, a needed break from that.
Right now, he wasn’t even sure he could eat.
So he sat there and focused on breathing.
On not figuring out how to track that motherfucking Pat down and pound him into the dirt, and then drag his bloodied carcass to Emma and show her he wasn’t like him.
Some Dom I am.
She tucked her phone away after a moment and refocused on him. “Grace and I are gay, you know.”
He nodded. “I know. Your mom and dad told me.”
“Dads.”
Another cold knife through his heart. “Sorry. Dads.”
She cocked her head at him. “You seriously expect me to believe you were going to let me and Grace have a say in where you and Mom live?”
He started to answer, stopped, then rethought how to phrase it, second-guessing himself now. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Emma.” He choked back sudden, renegade tears he’d thought he had a handle on. “I kno
w I’m not any of your dads, and you’ll never see me like that. I wanted to do everything I could to make you feel like you were a part of our lives. I mean, obviously I can’t afford a damn mansion, and Brandon knows what I make for a living. I wanted to try to spend as much time with you as you’d let me.”
She started texting again, focused on the phone. When she looked up a few minutes later, she pinned him with her blue gaze. “What if I tell Mom you two can move in together? I get to pick where?”
“We’d include you in the process, yes.”
“So it doesn’t bother you me and Grace are together?”
He was going to get whiplash at this rate, but he couldn’t do any worse than he already was, he supposed, as long as he didn’t lose his temper. “It doesn’t bother me, no. Just like your dads being gay and poly doesn’t bother me. Why would it bother me?”
“Because it bothers some people.”
“Then they’re idiots.”
“What about church?”
“I don’t go to church. I haven’t since I was a kid.”
“You know I’m a literal genius, right?”
A wave of exhaustion washed over him. “Your mom told me. She’s very proud of you.”
“What do you think about that?”
“About your mother being proud of you?”
“About me being smart.” The duh was implied.
“I think it’s great.”
More texting.
He wondered if she was texting Grace, but he’d be damned if he’d ask. He knew if he did, or if he demanded she put the phone away, it’d only be tossing napalm on a lit match.
He wasn’t an idiot.
And at this point, her being distracted by her phone was a relief.
She didn’t speak again until after their food was served. As she tore into hers like a predator relishing her fresh kill, he finally picked up a bottle of soy sauce and drizzled some in the small dish so he could add wasabi to it. It looked like he’d be taking most of it home, though, because he had no appetite left.
Emma paused and stared at him. “So you’re going to just sit there and let me push you around and insult you and basically control your life? What is wrong with you?”
Blues Beach [Suncoast Society] Page 19