Page 64 of Knight

“Yes, you are, sugar. And I absolutely love it and wouldn’t want you any other way.” I kiss her nose.

We check in to the hotel, quickly change, and head over to my dad’s house. When we walk in, my father gives me a huge hug, lifting me off the ground. He’s a big guy like me. He probably had an inch on me in his heyday, but now we’re about the same height. That’s where our similarities end. He’s light with fair skin. I look more like my mom with darker skin, jet-black hair and green eyes.

“How’s my boy? You look good, son. You don’t age.”

“I’m good, Dad. It might just be relative, being that you’re getting older.” He laughs. I grab Darian’s hand. “Please meet the love of my life, Darian Lawrence. Darian, this is my father, Jesse Knight.” Darian gives me a little bit of a look with that introduction. She tentatively moves to hug him.

“It’s so nice to meet you. What would you like for me to call you?”

“It’s nice to meet you too, pretty lady. You can call me Jesse… or Dad.” Her eyes just about pop out of her head. I whisper to her that Jesse is fine. That puts her at ease.

“Ooh, I almost forgot. I have something for you, Jesse.” Darian pulls a wrapped gift out of her purse and hands it to my father. “Merry Christmas.” I didn’t know she was doing that. I have no idea what it is. I give her a squeeze of thanks.

Dad opens it. It’s framed picture of Payton, Trevor, Hayden, and me from our football game on Thanksgiving Day. We’ve got our arms draped around each other with huge smiles. I haven’t seen this picture.

“Thank you, Darian. What a great shot of my four favorite boys. I’m going to display it front and center.” He places it right in the middle of the mantle, over his fireplace.

“That was during our Thanksgiving football game. You should ask your son who the winning quarterback was.” She smiles at me. “That person may have thrown five touchdown passes.”

“I couldn’t concentrate on the game. I was blinded by her beauty.” She rolls her eyes at that, and my dad laughs.

“I can certainly understand that, son. Come on. Let’s eat. Dinner’s getting cold.”

We eat a nice meal with my father. He asks Darian lots of questions about her girls and her life. She asks him a lot of questions about me growing up.

When she excuses herself to go to the bathroom, he leans over toward me. “You really like this girl, huh?”

“I love her. She’s the one. I have no doubts about that whatsoever.”

“You need to be careful, son. Widows are a different breed. You chose to end your marriage to Melissa. It’s different for widows. It’s chosen for them. It’s hard to ever really get over the loss. Trust me, I know firsthand.”

My father certainly does know firsthand. He’s dated over the years, but he never remarried. He said that there’s no better woman out there, so there’s no need.

Darian returns and I look at my father. “Dad, do you mind if after we clear the table, I take Darian to my old treehouse? I’d like to show her your handy work.”

“Of course. Don’t worry about clearing. There are only three of us. I’ve got it. You kids go have fun. There are some blankets on the chair over there. It’s cold out. Take them with you.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Thanks for dinner Jesse. It was delicious.” He smiles at her.

Darian and I grab the blankets and head out to my old tree house. It’s a bit more than your run-of-the-mill treehouse, even given its age. My father was a carpenter. This thing is probably built better than most houses.

We climb up and Darian looks around. “Wow, Jackson. This treehouse is nicer than an actual house.”

“I know. My dad is the best. He built houses for a living. He didn’t know any differently, so this was built like one of them. Just a smaller version.”

We put out the blankets and lay down. We look up at the stars. There’s actually a skylight in the treehouse, so we can see the clear Colorado sky from in here. You can’t see the stars like this in Philly. It’s one of the things I miss most about Colorado.

Darian grabs my hand as she looks up. “What a view.” I look at her. My thoughts exactly.

She smiles. “This treehouse must have been a chick magnet for you. You must have gotten a lot of ladies to drop their panties in here, Knight.”

I laugh. “No, not at all. He built it for me when my mom got sick, so I’d have somewhere to come to do whatever I needed to do. Think, relax, cry, yell, scream. Whatever I needed to do to get through watching my mom deteriorate the way she did.”

“That’s really sweet that even in his time of loss, he valued your needs so much.”

“That’s my dad for you.”

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