Page 91 of All's Fair in Love and Blood - A Romantic Comedy Novel

“Me too.”

We put away the rest of the groceries in silence, but once I started cooking, we braved more conversations. While I chopped veggies, Auggie sat at the breakfast bar looking as unsure as I felt.

“Do you want to help?” I wasn’t sure what else to say.

“I’m a disaster in the kitchen. Your mother banned me from it.”

“She did? What did you do?”

“You name it, but I think the last straw was when I used the blender without a lid and sprayed tomatoes all over the kitchen.”

I laughed imagining what a mess that must have been to clean up, and because I could never imagine my father doing something so like me. I pushed some washed romaine lettuce toward him. “Could you handle tearing lettuce into bite-size pieces?”

“What would you consider bite size?” he asked quite seriously.

“You’re a smart man. I think you can figure it out.”

He raised his brows at me. “Now you sound like Naomi.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

He grabbed the lettuce. “I’m glad for her influence in your life.”

“She’s the best.” I tossed some cucumbers in a bowl.

“She is,” Auggie agreed.

“Do you ever miss her?” I eeked out.

Auggie stopped tearing lettuce and swallowed hard. “She and your mother were the loves of my life,” he offered.

“Maybe you’ll find love again.” I only prayed it was with a sane woman his own age. And that I didn’t have to go to another one of his weddings. I would appreciate an elopement.

He waved away my insinuations. “I think I’ve exceeded my limit.”

Internally, I breathed a sigh of relief.

“What about you?” he casually asked.

“I don’t know.” I grabbed a mango.

“What about Kane?” He gave me a pointed look.

It suddenly felt very warm. I set my knife down on the cutting board. “We’re going to be friends.”

Auggie laughed a deep, throaty laugh, so unlike him. “Does Kane know that?”

“Of course.”

“All right.” He went back to tearing lettuce, not believing a word I just said.

“Why are you all of a sudden team Kane?” I had to ask. In fact, I was a bit annoyed. Why couldn’t he have been more supportive about my relationship with Kane eight years ago? Not that it would have changed anything. Kane still would have left me for my “own good.”

He let out a heavy breath. “Whether you believe it or not, I’m not on Kane’s team. I’m on yours.”

His words touched my heart. I wanted to believe him. I was trying to.

“You were different with him. There was light in your eyes.” He lowered his voice. “They reminded me of your mother’s.”

“How did you know Momma was the one?” I dared to ask.

Auggie sighed and looked past me as if he were seeing the ghosts of yesterday. “We were children, Scarlett.” He sounded so remorseful. Why was it he always did when he spoke of Momma? That he constantly drifted to how young she was?

“You didn’t answer my question.”

He turned his head toward me, his turbulent eyes peered into my own. “She . . .” He paused before restarting. “One day during gym, some friends and I made fun of one of our classmates for tripping on his shoelaces. She quietly said to me that I was better than that, and then she walked away. It was the first thing she had ever said to me, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it or her. She was like that, though—quiet, but deafening in her own way. From that day on, I found ways to be around her. I noticed how kind and unassuming she was. She was beautiful,” he said wistfully, “though she never believed it, no matter how many times I told her. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew I didn’t want to ever be without her.” He choked his emotion down.

I reached over and put my hand on top of his, tears filling my eyes. “I’m sorry she left you.”

He rested his other hand on top of mine. “We can’t live in the past.” He said it in a way that made it clear he was done talking about her.

We both went back to our tasks. Despite the quiet, I felt like we had made some more progress. Little by little, I was determined to know Auggie, for him to become my dad, not just my father.

While we ate, we didn’t talk about anything deep other than work and the conference coming up on Friday. Apparently, all the board members would be there. Joy. He also asked how my business plan was coming. He tried to give pointers without really giving any, like keeping the plan to the point and as clean as possible. Use bullet points, graphs, and charts, and avoid long information dumps. I’d read that in my How to Write a Business Plan for Dummies book, but it was good to have the validation. And it was good to talk to my father.

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