Page 16 of Head Over Heels

I drop Gillian a text, and Katie and I finish up at the grocery store.

We head home and put our plan into action.

When Chase comes through the door at the end of the day, we’re ready for him.

“Daddy!” she crows. “We made a table!”

“You—?”

Chase’s hair is rumpled and there are circles under his eyes. But he still looks great in his T-shirt and light-brown Carhartts, which seem to be his work uniform. “You made atable?”

“Come see,” she says, tugging his hand.

He shoots me a confused look but follows her into the kitchen, where comprehension dawns. He narrows his eyes at me. I shrug innocently.

We’ve made him dinner—a steak salad withloadsof marinated, grilled sirloin, and little bits of those crispy fried noodles, and plenty of chopped veggies. The steak salad is served on a gorgeous (new) serving platter, and next to it there’s a (new) basket, lined with a (new) cloth napkin, full of fresh crusty bread. There’s a little covered butter tray (new) and a sweet little blunt butter knife (new). There are (new) candles burning in their holders (new) in the center of the table, and each place is set with a (new) cloth placemat, a matching napkin, and a full table setting. I’ve poured us drinks in wineglasses (new).

“Daddy, doesn’t it lookbeautiful?”

Out of the mouth of babes.

“It does, honey. It’s so beautiful. You did an amazing job. Did you and Liv do all this?”

He says my name like it’s a dirty word, and I have to swallow my giggles.

“We went shopping,” she says proudly. “We went shopping and we got all the things. I picked the best ones. And then we got the food at the grocery store and we cooked it and we set the table.”

“Sit down,” I tell him.

He glares at me, but sits, and I serve him steak and salad and bread.

“Is this going on my tab?” he asks.

I smirk in his direction. “The food is.”

“And the rest of it?”

“It’s a gift.”

I say it knowing it’s going to make him crazy. He’s definitely an old-fashioned guy in that respect—we had a whole conversation about it on our “date” when he tried to pay for me. (I won, on semantic grounds. I said that since we had concluded that dating could never happen between us, the thing we were on was technically not a date, and therefore it made sense for us to each cover our own half.)

“I can pay for it,” he says stiffly.

I have to hide another smile, knowing this battle is mine to win, with Katie beaming at him from behind her plate, eating bread and the noodles and raw veggies out of her salad and, after I cut it into pieces for her, small bits of steak.

“I bought this stuff for Katie,” I say, and you should see the dirty look he gives me then.

“Notfair,” he mutters, and of course it isn’t, and I won’t make a habit of it, of course I won’t, but Katie’sstillsmiling and I catch the corner of his mouth tipping, the tiniest bit.

Chapter 7

Chase

It’s pretty much impossible to be annoyed with Liv, which annoys the shit out of me.

I mean, she’s completely messing with me—beautifying my kitchen when I’m not around to defend myself—and she set it up so there’s no way I can possibly object without hurting Katie’s feelings or acting like an ogre.

On top of that, they both look so happy.

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