Page 13 of Enemy Daddy Next Door

At least at forty-two I’m young in some people’s eyes. I glance at my watch and then push myself up from my seat and sigh. “We’re moving forward with the project, Stan. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got another meeting.”

I don’t wait for any replies from the peanut gallery. This is my company. What I say goes.

I just can’t believe this is what I turned into after resisting it for so long.

* * *

My meeting is only one in name. I’m meeting up with a couple friends for midafternoon drinks which means the rest of my workday will be worthless.

That’s just fine with me.

When I arrive, my friends are already there. Axel and Grant are sitting at a high-top right by a set of doors that opens up onto a back patio so we can get the perfect combination of air conditioning and LA heat at once.

The three of us have become a sort of unlikely group of friends. Mostly because we all came together through the central force of the Solace family. Axel’s childhood home is on the other side of the Solace property, so we would run into each other often. Grant, of course, is Kent Solace’s best friend and ended up falling in love with one of his daughters. It was only a matter of time before the three of us gathered together and realized just how alike we are.

“You’re late, Hunter,” Grant says with a wry smile.

“Sorry, was trapped in a meeting.”

“They’re still giving you a hard time about the project?” Axel asks. Axel is a property developer; we met as neighbors, but I enlisted him to help me with finding and developing the family friendly resort I want to add to the Ricks Group.

I hold out my hand to flag down the server and simultaneously murmur, “It’s not a hard time if they know they don’t actually have much of a say.” When the server stops by, I order a whisky sour, then return to my conversation. “I’m just waiting for them to shut up. We’re moving forward with it as soon as you find the right spot to build.”

“Well, you’re in luck, I actually –‘”

“Did I really come all the way out here for you two to talk about work?” Grant asks, rolling his eyes.

I can’t blame Grant for being annoyed. He’s got a not-so-newborn at home and is doing his best to run a multi-billion dollar entertainment company while also being a supportive husband and father. “You’re right, sorry. You gotta tell us how married life is,” I say.

“The same as unmarried life,” Grant says. “Harley and I only wanted to have the paperwork done. Makes more sense, especially now that Tana is here.”

Grant and Harley had a courthouse wedding and the reception of the century just over a month ago. “Well, what about you?” I turn to Axel. “How does it feel to be a ‘fiancé’?”

Axel flushes. He’s usually a stiff upper lip kind of guy, but any time he starts to talk or even think about Gillian, he gets bashful. “I have to say it does feel different.”

“That I’ll agree with,” Grant says.

I felt different at every step of the way with my ex-wife. Boyfriend to fiancé to husband all felt like mounting accomplishments.

Ex-husband and single father really just popped all that like a balloon.

“I have to admit, though,” Axel says, twisting the base of his gin and tonic. “With Stella in the mix, I have moments I get really nervous.”

Grant and I exchange a look. It was different for both of us. We both had time to prepare for fatherhood and were with our daughters every step of the way. Axel just found out that Gillian’s daughter, Stella, is his. And Stella is six. “I see you two together,” I say kindly. “You make it look easy.”

“I don’t know many men who could step up like you have, Axel,” Grant adds with a nod.

“I just don’t want to become my dad,” Axel says carefully.

We all go silent. We’ve all expressed that sentiment at one time or another. That’s really the thing that binds us all together: we’re fathers who are desperate to break the patterns of our own childhoods. “You won’t,” Grant says.

“You say that so confidently,” Axel replies.

“Because I have to!” Grant exclaims and picks up his martini. “Because I think that every morning when I wake up.”

“We have to believe that we won’t in order to make it through, I think,” I say.

The server comes by, dropping off my drink, and I down half of it in one go. The number of times I have laid in bed awake at night thinking about how I’m not enough for Jessica. How I will never be able to fill the shoes of both a mother and a father because inside I’m so broken and twisted around…

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