Page 27 of Doctor Grump

She sighed heavily. “Cheesecake,” she finally muttered.

“Really? That’s my favorite too,” I said. “I’ll make that today.”

“Dad hates cheesecake,” she said.

“That’s because he hadn’t had mine yet,” I said. She just shrugged.

“I don’t think it’ll matter anyway. He won’t come.”

“Of course he will,” I said to encourage her, although I was less sure than I sounded. “He promised.”

The girl looked doubtful, so I said, “Tell you what. If we have dinner and he doesn’t show up by seven, I’ll pay up. Ten whole bucks. Agreed?”

The girl perked up and nodded.

“And if he does show up, you have to promise to watch a movie with me and at least look happy when you do it.”

The girl seemed a lot less enthusiastic about that, but she still nodded.

And that was how I ended up being ten bucks poorer at the end of the night.

Because Ian didn’t show. No calls, no text, nothing to even suggest that something came up. I delayed dinner for as long as possible, but it didn’t matter.

Kendy didn’t seem as sad about it this time. She seemed pretty happy, but that was probably because she got ten bucks out of it. And for me personally, the loss of money hurt less than the loss of trust.

Once again, I thought Ian’s word meant something, and once again, I was proven wrong.

I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt that night and didn’t make a big deal out of it. I didn’t see him come in, but he was there for breakfast, and he said he had some projects he was working on that would have him working late. But he didn’t show up the night after that either, or the one after that, losing me money again and again.

After the third day of no-shows, I finally had it.

Fuming, I stayed up that night, waiting for him. It was nearly midnight, and the man was still not home yet. And once again, his daughter had gone up to bed without him. This time, I was determined that he would have a piece of my mind. He could not keep living like this, working at this killer pace. It would eventually be the death of him and irrevocably destroy his relationship with his daughter.

I heard the click of the door and immediately got up, heading toward the sound.

I opened my mouth, all prepared to start scolding him, but I stopped short.

Ian stood in the doorway, and he looked exhausted.

His hair was in disarray around his head, and there was something on his shirt that looked like it might be blood. One hand was braced on the doorway as if he had to lean on it for some time.

He looked up to find me watching him, and I sighed.

“Come on,” I said. “There’s some food left over on the table.”

“I need to wash up first,” he muttered.

I nodded. “I’ll bring it up.”

I gave him a good fifteen minutes to get ready before I started heading up to his room. I even knocked loudly, announcing my presence before walking in. Still, I found him shirtless and almost dropped the entire plate.

“Oh, sorry, I—” I stammered as he reached out and steadied the plate. With a tiny smirk, he took it from my arms and placed it aside on the dresser.

His eyes were searing as they went back to mine. The heat expanded as his hand went around my waist and pulled me gradually into his arms.

I went willingly, too, despite everything inside me freaking out and telling me to stop immediately.

We stood there in silence as minutes and moments passed by.

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