Page 66 of Single Dad Dilemma
“How long have you been traveling like this, sweetheart?”
Later, I’d blame it on the easy way she used the endearment, something I wasn’t sure I’d earned. The Mom Energy was strong with this one, and it decimated my ability to lie. To brush her off and pretend like this wasn’t a really fucking hard question to answer. I pulled in a sharp breath through my nose, fully aware of Barrett’s eyes on me while I did.
“Ten years. Three months.” I swallowed. “Two days.”
His mom was quiet. So was Barrett, his watchful expression from across the room more than I could handle.
“That’s a long time,” Robin said slowly. Her eyes were so kind. So warm. Both things tied me up in knots inside. “And you saw some of Buffalo recently, isn’t that right?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak right away.
“What did you like seeing most yesterday?”
Barrett’s eyes were heavy on the side of my face as I cupped my hand underneath the edge of the counter and swept a small pile of powdered sugar into my palm. “Niagara, actually.”
“In the winter?” he asked.
The sound of his voice, deeper and lower than his father’s, made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I met his eyes carefully and nodded. “It wasn’t busy, and a lot of it is frozen over, but ... it was amazing.”
Magical. Everything about it was magical. The movement of the water underneath the sheets of ice. The water churning mightily, the air filled with a mist so cold on my face that it was hard to breathe sometimes. But I had stood there as long as I could handle, until my nose felt like ice and my teeth started chattering.
His eyes were on me, their unrelenting heat twisting my stomach into a weightless knot.
“Get everything done at the office?” Barrett’s dad asked him.
Barrett pulled his gaze from mine and nodded. “Had to sneak in and out so too many people didn’t stop me, but most everyone knows I was working from home today.”
Bryce sidled up next to his dad, nuzzling against his father’s chest. Barrett returned the embrace, absently dropping a kiss on his son’s head. His phone started vibrating, and he pulled it out, looking at the screen.
“Isn’t that the GM?” Bryce asked.
Barrett nodded.
I waited for him to pull away, but instead he ignored the call.
“You don’t need to take that?” Bryce asked.
Barrett touched his son’s face and shook his head. “Not right now. I’ll tell him my son was hugging me voluntarily. He’ll understand,” he answered with a wryness to his voice I’d never heard.
Bryce grinned, hugging his father tight. That would’ve been enough. Enough to do me the fuck in. It was already a battle not to melt right there on the kitchen floor, but with Barrett’s face when hereturned the hug—the way he closed his eyes, pressed his nose into Bryce’s hair—I was in mortal danger of bursting into tears.
Naturally, I grabbed another cookie and shoved it right the hell into my waiting mouth, because if anything could stem a hormone-induced meltdown, it was copious amounts of sugar.
Bryce pulled away and snatched another cookie, the entire thing disappearing in one bite. His cheeks puffed out as he chewed.
“How many have you had?” Barrett asked.
Bryce blinked, then swallowed the cookie. “I lost count.”
He sighed. “Last one, okay?”
Maggie perked up. “Did you bring home that stuff Bridget told me about?”
Barrett nodded. “Boxes are in the back of my truck if you want to go grab them.”
The kids tore out of the kitchen, and Robin whispered something to her husband, shooing him toward the hallway that led to the guest room.
“Did you try one?” I asked, nodding at the cookies.
