Page 34 of Single Dad Dilemma
It was the slight narrowing of Bridget’s eyes and the thoughtful purse of her lips that made me shift in my seat. “Interesting,” she mused.
“It’s notinteresting. It’s fucking annoying.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “And she’s making you swear.Veryinteresting.”
I rolled my lips together and sat up in my chair, opening my laptop with a brisk movement. “Whatever you say. I don’t need her help much longer. My mom will be here ... soon.”
Lord, let her be here soon.
“She pretty?” Bridget asked with an innocent widening of her eyes.
“I didn’t notice,” I lied. Based on the wry arch to her eyebrow, I wasn’t all that convincing.
She paused again by the entrance to my office. “Barrett?”
I gave her an annoyed look.
“Don’t forget Maggie’s concert,” she said sweetly.
The parking lot of the school was full by the time I arrived, and I jogged inside the one-story brick building to get out of the cold. It hadn’t snowed in a few days, but the temps continued to drop, the windchill enough to make your skin hurt if you stayed out in it too long.
I was stomping the slush off my boots just inside the door when a couple of boys ran up to me.
“Hey, Coach,” they said, holding out their fists for a tap, which I gave them.
“Hey, guys.” They might have been in Maggie’s grade, but I didn’t recognize any of her classmates yet.
Despite the fact that I wasn’t the dad who could come to field trips or PTO events or classroom parties, I was probably the most popular parent in the middle school, at least according to Bryce.
“We gonna win this weekend?” one of them asked, eyes bright and cheeks a little flushed.
I gave him a small smile. “Hope so. Excuse me, I need to go find a seat,” I told them.
They ran off, and I glanced around, trying to find Bryce. The text on my phone said he’d be waiting for me outside the doors of the gym after he saved us some seats.
His head popped up between a group of parents chatting by the door, and I nodded, making my way through the crowd. A few people said hi, most of them just smiled or cut me a wordless look, but no one stopped me before I reached Bryce.
“Hey, kid. You look nice,” I told him.
He ran his hands over the front of his button-down shirt. “Thanks. Lily told me it’s good to dress up for special occasions, even if they’re not ours.”
The sound of her name had me gritting my teeth. “Did she?”
“You like it?” he asked shyly. “And I, um, I tried to do my hair like yours.”
Bryce didn’t look exactly like me when I was younger, but it was close. He had the same height, the same build as me and my brother. He’d be tall and strong, already showing signs of being a natural athlete, even if he preferred soccer to football. And in his jaw, the line of his nose, and the slight curl of his hair when it got too long, I saw glimpses of myself I hadn’t noticed as strongly when he was younger.
My smile was bittersweet. “Looks good, son.”
He let out a small exhale, face breaking open into a wide smile. “Cool. Our seats are over here. She’s already sitting.”
My brow furrowed. “Who is?”
But Bryce was already bounding ahead. With each step, a growing sense of unease rolled around my stomach and up into my chest, breaking open into something else entirely when I saw her hair from behind, a chair open on either side of her.
She’d curled it today—big, loose curls that fell down past her shoulders. Her hair was a deep, glossy black, except for the last few inches, which were still a shocking blue. As I stared, heat built on my neck.
With my hands on my hips, I paused before walking into her eyeline, tipping my head back and staring up at the ceiling for a moment. There were eyes on me in situations like this; I’d have to be careful. Bryce slid past her and took his seat, immediately talking with a tall, skinny boy next to him. They leaned their heads in and laughed, so he must have been a friend of his from school.
