Page 25 of The Single Dad Grump Next Door

Just as I spot the familiar glow of the back patio light, Wren flops onto the sand, staring up at the sky with wide eyes.

“They’re so pretty,” she says. “The stars.”

“They are,” I agree, lying down beside her.

“Do you think Mommy can see them, too?” she asks softly.

The question catches me off guard, but I keep my voice steady. “Yeah, I think so.”

She nods, satisfied with that knowledge, and snuggles closer to me.

For a moment, everything is still. Even the ocean seems to quiet from a roar into a hum.

But then, out of the corner of my eye, I catch movement in the long streaks of light being cast onto the sand from the windows of the duplex.

I twist my neck to glance up at the cottage. Just barely visible through one of the upstairs windows, I catch sight of Alina. She’s perfectly framed in the window panes, her figure silhouetted against the curtains.

Our eyes don’t meet, or maybe they do and I simply can’t tell from all the way out here, but it feels like she’s watching us. Like she’s trying to make sense of what she sees. Like the fact thatI’m a halfway decent father is something that she’s still trying to conceptualize.

Before I can decide what to think, she moves away from the window and disappears into the shadows of her side of the house.

When Wren and I head back up to the cottage, the duplex is quiet. After some thorough debating, I convince Wren to take a shower to get all the sand out of her hair and the brine from the tide pools off her skin. If she had things her way, she’d probably sleep out there among the dunes like a wild thing.

After she’s clean, I tuck Wren into bed, kissing her forehead and smoothing her curls away from her face.

“Goodnight, Daddy,” she murmurs, her voice heavy with sleep.

“Goodnight, kid. Love you.”

“Mmph-oo,” she mutters in reply, already halfway asleep by the time I pull the blanket up to her chin.

I linger for a moment, watching her breathe, and then head to my room.

As I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, my thoughts drift back to Alina. After all these years, it’s still a habit that I can’t break. Every few months, I’d feel this unstoppable itch to check in on her, which is how I’d end up diving deep into videos of the CSO’s performances online.

Now that she’s here, and there’s nothing but a few thin walls separating us, that unshakeable obsession is stronger than ever.

She has always plagued my mind, for better or worse. I’m pretty sure it’s incurable. Alina is a curse I’m doomed to carry for the rest of my life, no matter how much time and space spans between us.

Chapter Nine: Alina

Last night, it had been strange seeing Gabe Sterling like that—laughing, smiling, and totally unguarded. Even at Juilliard, when we weren’t actively at each other’s throats, he was cold and stoic around me at the best of times, like someone had sculpted him from stone and forgotten to add warmth. I knew I was the same way, though. Yet, somehow, Gabe always seemed to have more friends than me.

Whatever. The point is, his daughter obviously brings out the best in him. Also, apparently, only under the cover of night will he allow that good side to truly come out.

Now, this morning, I’m trying really hard not to pay so much attention to him. At the same time, however, I refuse to stay inside the house just because I saw him and Wren walking back down to the beach as soon as the sun rose from its slumber beneath the horizon.

From where I’m sitting on the beach, the sight of Gabe tossing Wren up into the air, then catching her as she shrieks with delight, almost doesn’t seem real. My hand tightens around the handle of my coffee mug, the ceramic warm even through thefabric of my sleeve. It’s chilly this morning, and yet Wren has managed to coax her dad out of bed. Does she even know how much power she holds over him compared to everyone else who has ever known him?

I should look away, but I can’t. It’s like seeing a rare eclipse. Or some other kind of fleeting, inexplicable phenomenon.

After a few minutes, Karina plops down beside me on the sand and interrupts my confusing whirl of thoughts.

“Don’t stare too hard,” she teases. “You might actually burn a hole through him.”

“Very funny,” I mutter, pulling my knees up and wrapping my free arm around them.

Karina nudges me with her elbow. “It’s okay to admit he’s not the devil incarnate, you know. He seems like a really good dad. Even villains have layers.”

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