Page 61 of Single Dad Dilemma
Mom cleared her throat. “I met your brother’s neighbor yesterday,” she said. “Beautiful. He didn’t tell me how beautiful she was when he was complaining about her forhoursthe other day.”
“Mom,” I said in a warning tone.
Griffin whistled. “No shit. Tell me more. What’s she like?”
I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “There’s nothing to tell,” I said loudly. “She’s my neighbor. She helped with the kids for a little bit. That’s all.”
The lie was so easy to say, a lot less easy to believe.
“She cheats at Scrabble, apparently,” Dad filled in. “Your brother has a lot of feelings about it.”
I stood up. “I’m leaving.”
“Makes amazing cookies. Best I’ve ever had. He doesn’t like it when I eat those either.”
“She beat you in Scrabble, didn’t she, Barrett?” Griffin asked. “Hot damn, I wonder if she’d give me some tips.”
I wasn’t even sure where I was going, but once I was out of the room, I shoved my feet into my boots and snatched my coat before I could second-guess anything, marching into the garage as my chest heaved.
Was I so transparent?
No one had ever called me that in my entire life. It was always the opposite. Every inch of me felt hot, my family’s notice of the last thing I wanted anyone to notice ratcheting up my internal temperature by a solid fifteen degrees.
Next to the door was the big snow shovel I’d bought in the fall. We had a snowblower, but I’d always preferred the act of shoveling the driveway myself if I had the time and we weren’t talking a foot of snow.
Overnight, we’d accumulated a few inches, the flurries done by the time the sun rose. It was as good of a distraction as any, even though I’d already worked out that morning. I punched the button to open the garage door and peered out at the fresh blanket of snow, a deep sigh escaping my pursed lips, resulting in a visible cloud in the brisk air.
It was perfectly still, perfectly quiet, the branches of every tree coated in white. The sun was up, the cloud cover broken up enough that the snow glittered. I almost hated interrupting such a perfect moment.
Thump.
Scrape.
Thump.
“Son of abitch, this should not be”—a pause, a grunt—“so fucking hard.”
I closed my eyes. Apparently Lily did not have those same feelings.
I walked a few steps until I could see the front of the house next door. She stood in the middle of the driveway, one squiggly line of cleared driveway behind her, a dinky little plastic shovel in her gloved hands.
With her face screwed up in a determined expression, she shoved the plastic edge down into the snow.
Thump.
Using her arms, she lifted the snow and dumped it straight ahead, then dropped her head back and groaned. “Why do peoplelivehere? This isn’t normal.”
Retreating back into the garage held no small amount of appeal, but the sight of her was too much to resist. Admitting that felt like a certain kind of victory, after days of finding myself unable to unscramble my thoughts when it came to her.
Maybe I couldn’t define Lily. Even worse, maybe it was a fool’s errand to indulge whatever I felt climbing through my chest when she came into my head. That I’d end up hurt and missing her when she inevitably left.
Every other part of my life felt like a struggle, but while I stood there watching her battle with the snow and curse up at the sky, the answer was surprisingly simple.
Go. Talk to her. Get to know her.
It didn’t have to be anything more than that, and it didn’t have to be perfect.
It was easy to take a step in her direction. Then another. And another. Easy to admit to myself that this was what I’d wanted almost the entire time. Sometimes fighting an inconvenient truth causes us more suffering than just living with the fallout of saying that truth out loud. Of taking action to make it part of our reality.
