Page 39 of The Single Dad Project

“Ah. Of course.” He nodded. “Can I ask why you chose her? Don’t get me wrong, Florence Ballard was an amazing talent with a beautiful voice. But why her?”

Flo set her fork down and folded her arms on top of the table. For a long moment she stared down at her plate of half-eaten food, and he leaned forward, prepared to tell her never mind. But then she lifted her gaze to his, and the words froze on his tongue.

Besides, he wanted to hear her story. More than he should admit.

“My biological mom had a thing for music from the ’60s and ’70s,” she murmured. “Especially Motown. The Jackson 5. The Miracles. Marvin Gaye. The Temptations. And most definitely, the Supremes. And it’s funny, I almost chose Diana—my mom adored her. Had all of her music and movies. But I don’t know.” She shrugged a shoulder. “I was just eight or nine when I decided on Florence, though the legal name change didn’t come until a couple of years later. Still, way too early to truly grasp everything she endured, such as alcoholism, but I still had an affinity toward her. Back then she seemed like the quiet one. The beautiful, amazing and overshadowed singer.”

“Is that how you felt in your family? Overshadowed?” he asked even as he questioned how that could even be possible.

A tiny frown wrinkled her brow, and Flo lifted a hand, absently rubbing the backs of her fingers along her jaw.

“No, not overshadowed, exactly. Moe and Dad—”

“Moe?” he interrupted. “Is that your mother?”

“Yes.” She nodded. Another smile. “We blame Cole for that. The story goes that when he was a baby, he called her Moe instead of mom or mother, and it stuck. Not just for all of us, but for most everyone here in town, too.” Waving a hand, she continued, “So Moe and Dad were too—” her frown deepened “—intentional for us to feel overshadowed. Yes, they had a lot of children, but they also made time and space for each of us. Gave each of us room to grow in our own identities and they nurtured them, never stifled us or tried to conform us to an ideal of what the perfect family should be. And that was especially important for me, Cole and the twins since we’re not white. They made sure—” She abruptly broke off, a wry quirk to the corner of her mouth. “Am I protesting too much?”

He hiked a shoulder. “Little bit.”

But her love for them—her parents, her family—radiated from her.

She huffed a short breath, shaking her head. “I guess I just wanted to make it clear that my parents created a safe space for all of us.”

“I get that.” He leaned back against the booth again, crossing his arms. “Now just say what you’re trying really hard not to.”

She blinked, appearing momentarily surprised. Then she loosed a short, breathy chuckle that contained more deprecation than humor. “I’d almost forgotten how jarring that straightforward manner can be. Jarring and irritating.”

Not the first time he’d heard that, so he didn’t contradict her.

“If you don’t want to say it aloud, that’s your choice, Flo. I get we’re not exactly...friends,” he murmured.

“No.” She straightened, flattening her hands on either side of her plate. “Maybe because we’re notfriendsit’s a little easier.” Yet, it was another long beat of silence before she continued. “When you’re the quiet child in a house full of extroverts, you can kind of...not get lost, but melt into the background. And sometimes you start to believe your needs or wants aren’t as important as someone else’s. If you want a new SD card for your camera, but someone else needs money for a college application, you don’t speak up, because obviously college is more important. It doesn’t occur to you at the time that both would be equally important to your parents, and they’d make a way for their child who’s passionate about photography to have her memory card and for the other to get their needs met, too.”

Their childhoods had been different. While both had lost their biological mothers, she’d been blessed enough to grow up in a loving home while he’d had a father who married and discarded women with the ease of switching out household furniture. He and Addie had been pawns in relationship battles when Maurice remembered them, and ghosts in their own home when he didn’t.

Yet...

Yet, despite their childhoods and the age difference separating him and Flo, they shared that sense of disappearing, of becoming invisible in a family.

“I get that,” he said, and though it went against the grain for him to reveal personal information about himself, particularly to someone who’d so recently called him an asshole, he offered her a little of what she’d given him. “I only have one sister—younger than me—but I essentially cared for her. In our family it was a toss-up whether being noticed was better than being ignored. Not that my father was necessarily abusive. He was just shitty. So whenever we did have to ask for something, I put her needs before mine. I could get by—I could take care of myself—but she couldn’t. I think no matter what age, we find reasons to justify why our needs aren’t as important.”

Especially when that was the message a kid received from his only “present” parent.

“And now? Do you still find those reasons?” Flo asked, her gaze searching his, and for an absurd moment he had the impulse to swipe a hand down his face to make sure none of his thoughts leaked out into his expression. Like he said, absurd. And yet, he dug his fingers into his arms to keep them in place. “At your big age of, what?” She squinted. “Exactly how old are you?”

“You’re asking that now?” He snorted. “I’m thirty-seven. Thirteen years older than you. Thirteen years that might as well be three hundred,” he softly said.

“And here we are again,” she said, voice light, but no way he could miss that mocking lilt. “Somehow, we find ourselves back to the subject of experience. I’m not just lacking it on the job but in life, too, is that it?”

“And let me guess, I’m back to being the presumptuous asshole.”

“We meet again.” She tilted her head, the taunting tone making its way to her mouth in a smirk. “And yet you didn’t seem to give a damn about myinexperiencethe night we met.”

“I was wondering if you would eventually get around to throwing that out there.”

“Glad I didn’t disappoint.”

Tension—rife with anger and, fuck if he could deny it, lust—vibrated between them, seemed to wrap around them like electrified barbed wire. And here they were, the temporary cease-fire dissipated.

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