Chapter Two
Dean
Sundays are always the same. Wake up, get dressed, make coffee, and breakfast. Grocery shopping, lunch at the café with my mom, and then whatever afternoon activity my five-year-old daughter deems necessary. Followed by dinner, bath, a story or two, and bedtime. That’s my life.
She’s my life.
I’ve become accustomed to going with the flow. When you’re a single dad, you learn to bend your knees in just about every little detail of life. Schedules change, things happen, or more often than not, things don’t happen. It’s a part of life for everyone, but none more than when you’re a singular parental unit taking care of a child.
My schedule isn’t my own. I know that, understand, and accept it. It’s been that way from day one. From the moment that tiny, wrinkly little girl was placed in my arms, I’ve been a goner, a victim of eternal love.
If only I could say the same about Brooke, my ex.
I have exactly seven minutes left before my daughter wakes up, and I’m not about to let unpleasant thoughts of my past damper my morning. As soon as Bri wakes up, my day officially begins. Never mind that I’ve already finished two loads of laundry, emptied the dishwasher, worked out, and showered, all before seven. Sleep is something I gave up years ago, and if I’m being honest with myself, I lost it long before Bri came into my life. I was in no way a partier in college, but I could stay up all night studying or getting lost in whatever book series I was reading. College was more about making good grades and securing a well-paying job than anything else for me. In fact, I think the only party I went to in those four years at university was when I went inside one to deliver a pizza.
My mother was a single parent and barely made ends meet. She worked her ass off at two jobs so that I could have the necessary basics that most other kids receive day in and day out. She did the best she could, even if we had to do without, and I’m forever grateful for her sacrifice.
I make sure the house is ready for the hurricane that comes with a five-year-old. The toys are picked up and neatly stacked in the storage bins, but I smile knowing that it’ll only last just a bit longer. As soon as she’s up, Bri will be all over this place, playing with every toy she can find.
When the clock finally hits seven, I set my coffee cup down and head towards her room. The pink walls are bright as the sunlight reflecting off the Bay filters through white curtains. She helped me pick out everything in her room a year ago when I purchased this house and we made the move to Jupiter Bay. It wasn’t a far move, nor a difficult one to make. Especially in light that we were only heading one town over from Ridgewood, the place where I was born and raised. And it’s also still close enough to my mom, who helps when she can with Bri.
She’s sleeping on her stomach, with her rear up and her knees tucked beneath her. She’s slept this exact same way since she was an infant. Another smile spreads across my face, especially when I gently shake the sleeping girl.
“Sweetie, time to get up,” I say soothingly.
“No,” she grumbles, turning and facing away from me.
“’Fraid so. Let’s get up and have breakfast. We have to meet grandma in a few hours.”
“I don’t wanna.” Her surly attitude doesn’t surprise me in the least. Waking up in the morning is her least favorite thing to do. She’s more of a night owl the way her mother was. Sometimes it’s difficult to get her in bed at a decent hour.
“Too bad,” I say with a laugh. Grabbing the Frozen blanket, I pull it off her and scoop up her small body. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go to the bathroom and then get breakfast.”
I deposit my daughter in the bathroom and proceed to the kitchen. The griddle is hot and ready to make pancakes. I pour a few onto the pan just as Sleeping Beauty enters the room.
“I’m tired, Daddy. I want to go back to bed.”
“You know you can’t, honey. You need to eat so we can get dressed and get groceries.”
“Can I have mac and cheese when we have lunch with Mimi?” Mimi is the name she started using for my mom when she was learning to talk.
Flipping over the pancake, I ask, “Don’t you eat mac and cheese every day?”
“Yes, because it’s yummy.”
“It is yummy, but I’d love you to have something other than mac and cheese today,” I say as I pull the first three pancakes off the griddle. “Grab the syrup. You can have these,” I add as I set the pancakes on her plate.
Pouring more batter on the griddle, I watch out of the corner of my eye as she douses her food in sticky syrup. Looks like we’re taking another bath this morning. Smiling at myself, I flip three more and my stomach growls while I watch them cook. Fortunately, that’s the good thing about pancakes: they’re quick. Placing the food on another plate, I join my daughter at the table.
The rest of our morning progresses as we get ready, grocery shop, run back home to put them away, and finally head up to the café to meet Mom. She’s already waiting at a booth when we enter.
“Mimi!” Bri yells in the busy café as she runs towards my smiling mom.
“Good morning, sunshine. How was your morning?”
“Good. Daddy said crap when we were in the store. He got all the way to the front and remembered some’ting in the back.” Without a care in the world, Bri grabs the cup of crayons the waitresses always deliver to the table for her to color on the white paper placemat.
“Bri, we don’t say bad words, even if you’re repeating something Daddy said. Got it?” I say in my best ‘stern daddy’ voice.
“Got it,” she replies sweetly with that smile that melts my heart. It’s no wonder she’s spoiled rotten. I’m helpless against those big brown doe eyes and that smile.
Mom smiles broadly at me. “She’s got quite the memory,” she says humorously.
“Yeah, it’s great. She doesn’t hear me when I’m in the kitchen and she’s watching TV in the next room, but the moment I mumble a curse word under my breath, she has the hearing of an owl.”
“All kids, honey. All kids have that. It’s called selective hearing, and you had it too when you were younger.”
The perky waitress brings out our usual two glasses of ice tea and a lidded cup of apple juice. “Good morning, Brielle. What are you going to draw today?”
“A zebra and an elephant!” Bri replies, scribbling pink frantically on the paper.
Jenna sets two menus on the table as she says, “That will be a fabulous picture.”
“You can have it when I’m done.” Scribble, scribble, scribble.
“I would love it. I’ll put it on my fridge next to the picture of the goat.”
Jenna winks at me. “I’ll let you look at the menu and be back in a flash to take your orders.”
“Mac and cheese!” Bri yells.
“Indoor voice, please. And we’ve already discussed this. Your choices are cheeseburger, chicken fingers, or spaghetti.”
“Sketty, please,” she answers without looking up from her masterpiece.
“You should ask her out,” Mom says. It takes me a moment to catch up and realize what she’s said.
“What? Who?” I lower my voice in an attempt to not be overheard by little ears.
“Jenna. She likes you.”
“She’s too young.”
“No such thing, honey.”
“Not true. There’s definitely a too young category, Mom. Especially for a man who just crossed into his thirties.”
“Fine, whatever. She’s probably mid-twenties, which is not too young for you.”
I consider her words for a few moments, but quickly toss them out. She’s cute, funny, friendly, and always pleasant to Bri, but even with all of those attributes on her side, I’m just not into her.
Fact of the matter, I’ve found myself into only one woman lately. I’ve spent six months fantasizing about someone who is as hot and cold as they come. Friends one moment and ripping each other’s clothes off the next. Truth is she’s the only woman to get my heart racing in a long damn time, if you know what I mean. And can I really call her a friend? It’s not like we hang out. Ever. It’s a weird situation, and one I’m not ready to dissect at the moment, especially with my Mom.
“She’s a sweet girl, but I’m just not interested.” Her brown eyes are focused on mine, assessing and reading me like a book.
“Fine. If not her, then who?”
Before I can reply, Jenna returns to take our orders. I order the spaghetti for Bri, a Ruben for myself, and Mom orders a turkey club. Since our conversation, I pay a little more attention to Jenna. Her smiles hold a little flirtation and her eyes linger a little longer than expected in casual conversation. My mind wanders to the possibilities a relationship with the friendly blond might entail, but the daydreams are brushed aside by the memory of a brunette with deep green eyes and a smart mouth. She monopolizes way too much of my thoughts and even more of my dreams.
Damn, is she front and center in those. And usually naked.
A few random nights with her did nothing to quench the desire sparked to life by her. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll ever be sated. Not after that first night, nor the few that followed. But rules are rules, even if I’m not the one to set them. There are certain relationships that are to be strictly platonic.
Ours is one of them.
Jenna leaves our table to take care of another. I relax in the booth, my arm extended across the backrest. We both watch Bri color for a few minutes before I initiate the topic of work.
“So, I’ve thought about what you said and I’ve decided to go.” I don’t have to refresh her memory because I’m positive she knows exactly what I’m referring to. It’s not like we have a lot of topics hanging open and unresolved.
“I think that’s wise. You need to for work, and we’ll be fine.”
Exhaling deeply, I give her my full attention. “I know. It’s just a bad time at work, and it’ll take a lot of coordination with you to help with Bri.”
“I’ve already told you that I’ll adjust my schedule, Dean. You need this conference for work as part of your continued education. I’ll stay at your house with Bri, get her off to school, and then head to work myself. She’ll still go to Miss Nancy’s after school and I’ll get her when I get off work. It’s for, what, three days? I think I can manage for thirty-six hours. We’ll be fine.”
And they will be, I know it. It’s just that I’ve never left Bri for that length of time. The occasional sleepover with my mom is one thing, but three whole nights? When that’s all you’ve done for just over five years, it’s hard to let someone else take the wheel for a few days.
But she’s also right that it’s required of me for my job. I’ve put it off three times now, and I’m unable to get out of not going any more. My boss and one of the owners of the firm gave me strict orders to attend this conference or else. And since I require my job to, you know, buy groceries and pay my mortgage, I guess it’s off to Richmond I go.
“I know, Mom. I just hate the thought of leaving her.”
Jenna delivers our food and all conversations turn to Bri and her animal drawings. She’s obsessed with everything animals from barnyard to the ones in the wild. Her room might be pink but there’s animal posters covering parts of the walls and an array of stuffed dogs, cats, horses, cows, monkeys, and even a zebra on her bed.
“When do you leave?” Mom asks when the plates are being collected.
“Just over two weeks. It’s a Wednesday through Friday conference,” I say as I grab the check in the center of the table. “This one’s on me.”
“You got it last week,” she chastises with a frown.
Mom found a steady, decent paying job several years back, and while I know she can easily pick up the check at lunch, I still prefer to get it. Call me chivalrous or old fashioned, but I just think the man–or in my case, son–should pay.
“You can get next week if you’re quick enough,” I retort with a grin.
“I thought I raised you better than to be a wisenheimer. At least let me cover the tip,” Mom says as she pulls two fives from her purse.
“Fine,” I say before turning towards Bri. “Time to go, pumpkin.”
“Grab your jacket, Bri, and I’ll help you get it on while Daddy goes up and pays the check.”
“‘Kay, Mimi. Can we go to the park?” I hear my daughter ask as I head up to the counter.
Glancing over my shoulder I watch my mom take Bri by the hand and head outside to wait for me. The café is always busy for Sunday lunch, and today is no different. As I collect my change and head towards the door, a familiar face is walking through. I stop in my tracks at the first sight I’ve had of her in several weeks. She’s stunning in a light blue sweater that hugs her glorious chest, tight dark jeans covering my favorite pair of legs, and tan ankle boots that I wouldn’t mind seeing wrapped around my neck.
She’s a vision.
And when those dark green eyes lock on mine, I’m a goner. Completely smitten and she doesn’t even know it. My chest burns as oxygen fails to move through my lungs. Her smile starts hesitant but spreads sincerely to light up her heart-shaped face. There’s warmth and familiarity reflecting in her eyes until a woman walks in and stands beside her.
She instantly closes me off, shutting down the flutter of happiness I saw starting to settle on her face. She warmly greets her companion, a woman whose resemblance is uncanny. A sister, probably.
Instead of letting this moment turn uncomfortable, I offer them both cordial greetings and head towards the door. Before I can breach the threshold, however, I can’t help but turn back and glance over my shoulder. She’s there, standing beside a table filling up with people I can see as her family, but her eyes are on me. They lock for several heart-pounding seconds before the corner of her mouth turns upward. I can’t stop my own smile from cresting my lips.
Winking at the woman that I often run into in my dreams–and those day ones when I’m alone in the shower–I turn and step out into the sunlight. Jupiter Bay is a small town, and I’m never prepared for the way my body reacts to seeing her. My libido fires to life and my blood starts to hum. I’m always caught off guard when I run into her, but I’m left yearning for more. She gave me a taste, and I’m left wanting. More of everything.
More Payton Summer.