The Single Dad - A Standalone Romance (A Single Dad Firefighter Romance)

by Claire Adams

  Jess shook her head when I looked up. “It’s all over campus. Trust me, no one thinks you were an idiot—there are some girls who want to elect you class president for it!”

  I smiled slightly. So it was true then: Zack had been sleeping around since we broke up, as soon as he got to college.

  “Yeah, but I’m sure plenty of people are calling me a naïve freshie who thought a one-night stand actually meant something.”

  Jess shrugged. “If there are, who cares about them? I’ve told a few people you and Zack had a history, so it’s going around that he’s the kind of stupid asshole who sleeps with an ex and expects it to mean nothing.”

  I chuckled. “As long as he’s the one who’s being called an idiot, I guess that’s okay.” I sighed. I wanted a shower—in spite of the fact that I’d already had one that morning. “I thought I had zero feelings for him. Like—I thought I was completely over the breakup, Jess. I didn’t expect to see him at that party, and I didn’t even think of him when we went to that game.”

  Jess shrugged, shaking her head. “That’s the thing with exes. You think you’re over them and then boom! You get blindsided by feelings the next time you see them.” She shook her head again. “But I do have to say, if you had to get involved with an ex, Zack isn’t hard on the eyes. And you said you had a good time.”

  I blushed. “He was…much better in bed than I remembered. I guess that’s part of why I sort of…let myself think that there was more to it than just sex.”

  “Girlie, there is more to it than just sex, even if Zack doesn’t think so. He had to know it when he got you back to his place. I never saw a guy work harder to convince a girl to take a walk with him.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That might be because you never make them work very hard if you’re interested in them, and if you’re not interested, you shut them down early.”

  Jess laughed. “It works for me. Look, Evie: don’t think about it too much. You ran into an ex, you screwed him; he turned out to be an ass. It happens. Just take delight in the fact that there are plenty of girls who won’t screw him now.”

  I chuckled, but in spite of the fact that I was feeling—at least a little bit—better, I couldn’t quite make myself stop thinking about Zack. Had I been totally wrong about him when we’d been dating as teenagers? And why couldn’t I get him out of my mind now?

  CHAPTER TWO

  A few days later, after I had gotten over my humiliation, I decided that I was being stupid. I would just put Zack out of my mind completely and plunge back into my studies. I’d get a fresh start and forget that anything had ever happened between us. It was a big enough campus; as long as I didn’t go to any more frat parties, my chances of running into him were not that great. I put him out of my mind completely and told myself that there were plenty of other things that I could fill my time with and enjoy more. The biggest thing on my mind was the first meeting of the campus newspaper; I had read up on all of the threads in the group forum the newspaper used, and familiarized myself with the style guide, just like Professor Grant suggested in class. I expected my first assignment would be a softball—something hard to screw up, that would give them a chance to evaluate my ability to do the work. But that didn’t mean I could slack off on it; I should turn in the absolute best work that I could.

  I grabbed a coffee before the meeting and hurried down to the student union so I wouldn’t be late. I’d been to the student U a few times in the weeks I’d been at the college so far but never really paid the building that much attention; there were banners for our football team, of course, and all kinds of things covered in the school colors. Just inside the entrance there were benches and couches scattered around for chatting and relaxing, and artwork by students was on display. I could smell coffee—clearly I wasn’t the only one who needed a lift—and the lingering smells of a party given by the Latin American Club a little earlier in the afternoon. It felt homey and comforting, and I started to relax.

  I went into the room that the campus newspaper had taken for its own and sat down; there were the same beat-up couches as in the big room, a couple of desks, a projection screen, and a podium. Professor Grant was already there, as were a few of the members of the editorial board. “Ahh, Evelyn, thanks for getting here early.” Dr. Grant said, looking up from his laptop. “Michelle, Lisa, Alex, Nathan, this is Evelyn. She’s one of my most promising freshmen and I thought you’d like to give her a shot.”

  The editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Lisa, came over and shook my hand. “Good idea to bring coffee,” she said with a grin. She was a bit shorter than me, with auburn hair and creamy skin, dressed in a kind of fashionable-librarian look that I had to kind of admire. “These meetings end up going on for hours sometimes, people arguing about pitches, trying to campaign to keep a piece in contention.”

  “Not that different from a regular newspaper then, I guess,” I said, feeling a little nervous. I had no idea of any ideas to pitch.

  “Of course, since you’re new, you won’t be pitching for a few weeks. We’ll give you a few assignments to sort of feel out your aptitude. Every newbie gets to do a rotation of the different areas—so even if you start out in say, politics, you probably won’t be there permanently unless you decide you want to be.”

  I nodded. Other members of the newspaper started to file in and I took my seat at the back of the room, wanting to just observe. Since I had no articles to pitch, I didn’t really have a dog in the fight. I opened up my laptop and got ready to take notes, just in case there was anything I needed to remember later.

  I quickly got to see what Lisa meant; as the meeting came to order, everyone started putting their ideas forward, arguing for their pitches, for a better position in the finished paper—anything and everything a group of journalists could possibly argue about. I drank down my coffee and listened, taking occasional notes about what people were saying about the paper’s layout and other details. I lost track of time, but it had to be a couple of hours—I was glad that the meeting was after all my classes, and that they’d ordered in pizza, because the dining hall would almost definitely be closed by the time it was over.

  “Okay!” Lisa said, taking a deep breath as the arguments came to a close. “Now that we’ve gotten all that out of the way, it’s time for assignments. There’s a fencing tournament that needs at least a little coverage—Simon, you can take that one since you’re friends with someone on the fencing club. There’s also a big event by the Feminist Club; Elizabeth, that one’s all you.” Lisa went through a list and I waited my turn, knowing that I would probably not get a very plum assignment. Finally, Lisa came to the last item. “The football season is coming to a close, so we need to cover the last game. Evelyn, it’s kind of a big one—but I think from what Professor Grant said about your writing that you can cover it. I’ll also need you to get an interview with the QB; everyone’s talking about him. Zack’s his name I think? Have you met him?”

  I fought back the deep, hot blush I felt starting across my cheeks. “He and I went to the same high school,” I said, struggling to keep my voice neutral. I swallowed the lump I could feel forming in my throat, wondering if the people looking at me had been in the dining hall when I’d had my scuffle with Zack.

  “Awesome—then it should be easy to get him to give us some good snippets. Deadline is Sunday night—we’re publishing Monday.”

  I was glad I wasn’t on the editorial board; there’d be a lot of last-minute editing and proofing. The game would be Saturday—I had a few days to prepare myself for it. I smiled as graciously as I could as everyone started to clear out of the room, talking about their assignments and the deadline. I went back to my dorm full of pizza and coffee, telling myself I would get back to work right away—get some homework done, maybe do some studying. But as soon as I was in my room, I sank down onto the bed and groaned, covering my face with my hands. It wasn’t fair. I had wanted to make a clean break and get a fresh start, and here it was: I had to interview Zack for th
e newspaper. It was as if the Universe was forcing me to deal with that jerk. I shook my head and buried my face in my pillows, wishing that there was some way that I could turn down the assignment without making myself look like an idiot or making Professor Grant doubt me.

  Suck it up, Evelyn, I told myself firmly, giving myself a shake and sitting up. This isn’t the last time you’re going to have to deal with awkwardness. Do the interview, write the article, and be done with it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I was still trying to figure out what exactly I was going to do about the situation with Zack when I got out of my classes the next day —it would be awkward no matter what. I walked across the campus wishing I’d grabbed a thicker sweater; it was starting to get cold. I gritted my teeth and reminded myself I was headed to the library, where it was always warm. It would be colder once it got out closer to sunset, but the dorms weren’t that far. I could grab a heavier sweater before I went to the dining hall for dinner.

  I had been consciously avoiding Zack ever since I’d made my decision to get a fresh start. That wouldn’t work, of course, with the interview I had to get with him. But at least the library was somewhere I wouldn’t have to think about him. I could just get some studying done and pretend like he didn’t exist for a couple of hours. It was a relief.

  I went into the library and found myself instantly relaxing, muscles I hadn’t even known were tense beginning to uncoil along my back and shoulders. I took a deep breath—the library smelled like books, a faint trace of ozone from the copiers and computers, and something clean and lemony. I’d come to the library almost every day since classes officially started—though I’d changed up my time slightly in recent weeks. It was comfortable and homey to me. I made my way past the circulation and services desk and into the library proper, taking off my sweater; the classrooms were all pretty chilly, but the library always seemed to be a little warmer than any other building on campus except the student union.

  I found a seat in the quiet section, sitting down next to a girl I didn’t know; it was oddly busy—sometimes I’d go into the library and there would be no one but me and the staff. I didn’t think anything of it; after all, midterms were coming up, and people were probably cramming and making up for last time. I got out my American History textbook and my notebook, and started to flip through for the section we were currently covering. In the thick silence of the quiet section, I heard the library entrance doors squeak open and looked up in spite of my determination to plunge into my studying.

  Of all of the people to come walking into the library, it had to be him. I almost groaned as I caught sight of Zack walking past the circulation desk and heading to a different section of the library, not even looking around as he made his way past the section I was in. In a million years, I would never have guessed I would see Zack in the library looking as if he knew exactly where he was going, looking focused. I knew I was staring. I couldn’t believe my eyes; Zack, who had barely kept up his grades enough to get through high school, who had always joked about my bookworm habits, was in the campus library, textbooks in hand, looking as if he was going in for a prolonged jam session of studying.

  The girl I’d sat down next to must have noticed my staring; I nearly jumped out of my chair when she spoke. “He’s pretty hot, isn’t he?” I tore my gaze away from Zack. The girl—with short-cropped blonde hair and gray-green eyes—was looking in Zack’s direction and then grinned at me.

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling my heart pounding. I had to stop thinking about him—but it was impossible when he kept showing up like this; first the interview I had to do with him and now him being in the library while I was. If I were paranoid, I would say that there had to be some way he was manipulating things—it couldn’t be a coincidence that he kept getting thrown in my way.

  White van syndrome, I told myself. Since I had noticed Zack at the party and had ended up having sex with him—putting him at the forefront of my mind in spite of all my attempts to stop thinking about him—I was apt to notice anything having to do with him. I might have even ended up going to the game even if I didn’t have to cover it for the newspaper.

  I was being ridiculous, I thought. Zack was just another person. He didn’t keep showing up in my life for any particular reason; there were lots of people at the college with us, but there weren’t so many people that it was impossible for us to run into each other—we had gone eight weeks without seeing each other, but that was just a coincidence, and just because I tended to keep strictly to my dorm, the dining hall, my classes, and the library. I had to get used to seeing him occasionally or I’d never get over him.

  “He’s in here every day,” the girl was saying. I shrugged, although that piece of information surprised me more than seeing Zack in the first place. “Always comes out this time of the afternoon.”

  That at least explained why I hadn’t seen him. Normally I would have gone to the Library in the morning—but after the late meeting with the campus newspaper, I had slept in a bit. Normally I reserved a private study cubicle, too; but when I’d come in to reserve after breakfast, they were taken for the rest of the day until the library closed at midnight.

  I pretended to turn my attention back onto my book as if Zack’s appearance had nothing to do with me—and I was sure it didn’t. But if I took too much notice of him being in the library, the girl might ask if I knew him. It was bad enough to have made a public spectacle of myself in the dining hall, even if no one had really mentioned it to me in the days since. If she started asking questions, the whole sordid thing might come tumbling out of me, and the last thing I wanted or needed was to be the subject of gossip. I didn’t want to be Zack’s pining ex-girlfriend. I just wanted to get my work done, make my grades, and move on with my life.

  It was strange, though; I thought back to high school, and I tried to remember if I had ever seen Zack set foot in the school media center. He must have had to go with his English class when they were learning how to write a research paper, but I couldn’t think of any point in time when he had gone of his own volition to study. I think he even managed to skip study hall. He had never been a dedicated student or even a particularly good student—so what was he doing in the library now? I couldn’t imagine anything that would make him decide to do better in his classes. After all, there was a common piece of gossip that most of the football team was given a certain amount of leniency in getting their work done, turning it in on time, and even the quality of their work. The college wanted to make sure to toe the line between making sure they got an education and making sure they were still able to qualify to play. No one was blatantly passed if they didn’t do any work, but Zack was smart enough to manage a C without much effort; why would he put in extra work if he didn’t have to?

  I had to work hard to make myself focus on the task at hand. It was like an itch in my eyes—the urge to look up and see if Zack was still in the library, if he was actually studying or just goofing off. I didn’t care, I told myself. If he had somehow become a better student because the standards were higher in college, then that was good for him; but I still couldn’t quite credit the possibility of a guy who belonged to the most notorious frat on campus being a good student. It just didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t my problem. I didn’t care. I was just there to study. But the question still purred away at the back of my mind.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On Saturday, I told Jess that I had to go to the game; she was immediately interested. “Oh man, that’s right; you have to talk to douchebag afterwards!” She looked me over from head to toe and shook her head. “Oh, Evie, this is a mess. You’re not wearing this to the game are you?”

  I looked down at my outfit: a long-sleeved button-down shirt with a cardigan over it for warmth, a pair of jeans, and some sneakers.

  “What’s wrong with this?” I asked. It wasn’t as cute as what I had been wearing the previous game, but then, I wasn’t there to pick up a guy. I was there to watch the game, take notes, and int
erview Zack. The last thing I was interested in was looking cute.

  “Evie, you need to be looking your absolute best if you’re going to have to deal with him. Makeup, hair, the whole nine. But not too obvious, of course. Come on.” She dragged me into my room and started going through my closet. “It’s too cold to wear a skirt this short by itself, but these tights should be warm enough…ooh, this sweater is perfect. Just enough cleavage. You’ll be a little chilly but not too bad.”

  I tried to argue—I didn’t want to send any messages that I had no intention of following up on; not to Zack and certainly not to whoever we were sitting near in the section I had tickets for. Lisa had given me the newspaper’s standing tickets—close to the field, so that I had an excellent view and could keep up with everything.

  Jess kept repeating to me that if I was going to have to talk to Zack, I needed to look my absolute best. “You need to make sure he knows you’re not even thinking about him,” she told me firmly, coaching me through my makeup. I had relented on the outfit; it wasn’t worth wasting time arguing with her on the subject.

  “But I am thinking about him. I mean, I have to interview him. Of course I’m thinking about him.”

  Jess groaned in frustration. “Evelyn. You need to show him that you don’t give a good Goddamn about the fact that he just had sex with you and then pretended like you were nothing. You need to look like you might have already decided to go home with someone else after the game. He needs to look at you and think: oh God, what have I done?”

  I laughed and finally relented with my whole heart. I could see Jess’ point. If I was going to have to interact with Zack, I might as well go into it feeling confident and looking my best.

  I looked at myself in the mirror when Jess was finished with me; I was in our school’s colors, but it wasn’t a super-obvious, school spirit outfit. Everything seemed to go together, and I looked as good as I could without being incredibly dressed up. Jess had managed to do my hair in such a way that it looked great—but it didn’t look as if I had slaved over it for an hour. My makeup was just enough to highlight my best features without being obvious—unless I was going to a club or something, I didn’t like to look like I was wearing a mask of makeup. Jess was excited at the thought of me getting some kind of comeuppance—and the idea of going to such an important game without even having to badger me to go with her. I shook her off and sent her to her own room to get ready; we were going to have prime seats, and I pointed out that there could be some cute guys where we were sitting—she might as well be prepared to flirt. That sent her to her room and I spent the next thirty minutes fidgeting, trying to compose the notes I had put together about the game and the stakes. I knew more than a little bit about football from dating Zack in high school, but I wanted the article to be as good as possible.