Page 83 of The Problem with Dating

“Well, isn’t that exciting,” I replied. I made space on my desk, and he began pulling out the same items he packed in the basket each year. The same things Mama had made when Daddy brought her the basket on Hillstack many moons ago—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, barbecue chips, apple juice, and orange slices.

“I would have this meal with Willow, but did you know my baby girl was running around Chile with a strange man who went by the name Snake?” Dad asked as he sat down across from me.

I bit my bottom lip. “I plead the Fifth?”

He grumbled and shoved a handful of chips into his mouth. “It’s like you girls are trying to give your father a heart attack. You see this?” he said, pointing at his hair. “Every gray hair is from each of you girls. You have me looking like Black Santa out here.”

I laughed. “The gray looks good on you.”

“Well, you’re not wrong.” He opened the container of sandwiches, cut into stars like they were when we were kids, and handed me one. “What’s this I hear about you leaving Isla Iberia with that Alex Ramírez the other night?”

“News travels fast, huh?”

“It’s Honey Creek. Would you expect anything else?” He nodded my way. “Are you two involved?”

My stomach turned from the question. “We’re friends, I think.” Sort of. Kind of. Maybe. “It’s hard to explain. Kind of getting to know one another. He helped me out that night.”

“You like him, though,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “You know how I can tell? Your eyes sparkle when you talk about him.”

I huffed and waved him off. “No, that’s just the lighting fixture in here. I don’t like Alex. I mean, I don’tnotlike Alex. I mean—” Wait. Did I like Alex? What? No. Absolutely not. There was no way I liked him when I hated him forty-eight hours ago. If anything, we were acquaintances at best. Business neighbors. Nothing more, nothing less, except for the friendship we were trying to cultivate and—ohmygosh, why did my stomach feel like a swarm of butterflies filled it as I wondered if I liked Alex? What happened to the dragons?

Go away, butterflies! You do not belong here.

“It’s a complicated thing,” I choked out.

“A complicatedthing?” he echoed. “You younger generations and your overthinking of stuff. You know, in my day, dating was much easier. You weren’t going person to person, dating fifty people at once, like you were a juggler. No. You set your eyes on one individual, stated proudly that you were seeing them, and you let the man court you. Do men not do that anymore? Court women?”

I snickered. “There’s a lot that men and women don’t do anymore when it comes to the world of dating.”

He grumbled and shook his head. “That’s unfortunate. Listen, I know change is good, and we should grow as a world. I’m not one of those old farts going on and on about how things used to be, but dating used to feel good. Now, it sounds like you all run high on anxiety, swiping right and left on your phones, not giving people a long enough shot because someone else always lurks around the corner. When dating, men and women bicker about what the other should and shouldn’t do. Then, there’re like fifty things before actual dating. What’s that thing called? I heard it on the radio the other day.” He snapped his fingers, trying to remember the word.

“A situationship.”

“Yes! That! What is that? Someone called in for advice and said they were in a situationship for two years. Two years, Yara! Can you believe that? She said the guy told her he wasn’t ready to commit to just dating. I thought we committed to marriage. I didn’t know we had to commit to just calling someone yours.”

“I think people made all of these different words and levels to dating because they’re trying to protect themselves from getting hurt.”

Daddy huffed and waved it off. “They made a mistake. People build up brick walls, going in wary and expecting the worst, instead of placing gates that are still safe but open up to at least give others a chance to come inside. That’s the problem with your generation. Too many walls, not enough fences.”

“That’s a good point.”

“And don’t get me wrong—some people are dangerous. Some people, like a certain ex-husband I won’t mention, don’t care how they hurt others. That’s where discernment comes in. That’s when you close your gate and bolt lock it. But I like to believe that most people are just looking for love and to be loved in a world that’s forgotten what true love is.”

Matthew Kingsley, always with the words of wisdom. It’s probably where Willow got that trait from.

“It is scary, though,” I countered. “To put your heart on the line.”

“Yes, it is. Especially after you’ve been burned,” he agreed. “But you know what’s even scarier?”

“What’s that?”

“Missing out on the soothing balm that new love can bring. If I stopped believing in love after your biological mother walked out, I would’ve never met your mama. We wouldn’t have Avery or Willow. Could you imagine a world without their hearts?”

“Not for a second.”

“Exactly. So that’s why, even after the burns, we try again. Because love brings miracles we’d never dreamed of.”

My father. The hopeless romantic. Even after all the hardships he’s faced.

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