Page 41 of Single Dad Dilemma
Hissing at new people and slamming doors, like he’d said. Not too far off, all in all, and if he—ifanyonewith muscles and jawlines anddark, warm eyes—could peek behind that particular curtain and not run screaming ...
That seemed significantly worse.
Or it would, if I was worried about Barrett King being my type. But I wasn’t.
Becausehewasn’t.
My hand clenched as I held my fist aloft. I was doing this for Maggie. For Bryce.
It was enough to bring myself to knock. Firmly, decisively, like I wastotallyfine being here. With my stomach in regrettable knots that made my nerves impossible to ignore—those little dicks—I let out a deep breath and centered my chi or whatever I needed to do in order to face Barrett for the next several hours.
The sound of thundering footsteps coming toward the door made me smile. Not the owner of the house letting me in, then. I highly doubted he’d sprint in my direction, unless the house was on fire and I was blocking the exit.
It was a good thing I braced myself before the door whipped open, because Bryce and Maggie flung themselves at me like they hadn’t just seen me two days earlier.
“Whoa,” I laughed. “Hey, you two.”
Bryce pulled back first, his eyes shining. “Do you like Monopoly? Or any game? We can play Scrabble too. I love Scrabble.”
“I—”
“She’s baking with me,” Maggie reminded her brother, grabbing my hand and pulling me into the house. “I already told you that.”
“You can’t just claim all her time, Maggie,” Bryce huffed.
“We can do both,” I assured them. “But we should bake cookies first. Let them cool before we decorate.”
Barrett was nowhere to be seen, and the knot in my stomach eased a little. What kind of Christmas dad was he? There was a cartoonish version in my head when I tried to imagine him navigating a lighthearted holiday. He’d have a schedule, color coded and militant. Fifteen minutesto eat cookies. Then fifteen minutes to drink eggnog. Not a single piece of wrapping paper would touch the ground, lest it create a mess.
A hysterical laugh threatened to spill out of my mouth, because the fact that I was here made me question my own decision-making skills. But despite all that, and the looming, unseen presence of Hot Scary Christmas Dad, the house smelled good—like a pine tree farm and mulled cider had exploded in the main room.
My eyes tracked over the space, drinking in all the details. I hadn’t made it this far inside the other night, and I didn’t even try to hide my curiosity now.
The kitchen was big, stretching along the back wall of the house, an island with four stools in the middle. In the living room, there were a few support columns behind the long L-shaped couch that faced the TV mounted on the wall, and in the corner was a Christmas tree with twinkling colored lights.
It was the only nod to the holiday that I could see, but the space underneath it was filled with prettily wrapped presents. In the bag slung over my shoulder was one for each of the kids.
“You look pretty,” Maggie told me.
Elastic waistbands and forgiving fabric were the real MVPs of the holiday, which was why I’d gone for my softest pair of leggings and the Celtics sweatshirt. Despite a quick swipe of mascara before I walked over,prettywas not the look I’d been going for, so I gave her a wry arch of my eyebrow. I touched the sparkly headband holding her hair back. “So do you.”
“We went to church this morning,” she sighed. “And we don’t really ever go, so I wasn’t sure what to wear. But I felt like I needed to dress up a little bit.” She paused. “For baby Jesus.”
I nodded seriously. “Of course.”
Bryce started peeking in my bag. “What’s in here?”
I smacked his hand away. “Hey, do you normally go through people’s stuff? Away, little man. Nothing for you to see.”
He laughed, running off to the dining room table, where a messy stack of board games took up half the surface. “How long will it take you to get the cookies in the oven?”
I set my bag down on the counter and fished out the container of chilled dough. “Twenty minutes, maybe? Unless your sister has real problems using cookie cutters.”
“Oh, we bought some at the store this morning,” Maggie said, opening up a bag sitting on the counter next to the fridge.
“You went to the grocery store on Christmas Eve? You must be out of your mind,” I said, tapping her on the tip of her nose.
“Dad’s fault,” they said in unison.
