Page 53 of Accidental Blind Date

“How was I supposed to know who Poppy and Delilah are?” she snaps back.

I just smile. “I suppose you couldn’t have known.”

“Fine,” she says. “I guess I jumped to conclusions.”

“You did.”

I am loving the way the tables have turned. And as Libby opens her mouth to say something, the girls crash the party.

“We are ready to go!” Poppy says.

“Well, it was lovely to see you girls,” Libby smiles down at them and again my heart cranks in my chest.

“Can we see you again soon?” Poppy asks.

“Oh! Maybe you can take us to her shop, dad!” Delilah says.

“I mean, I could?—”

“You really should see it, dad,” Delilah goes on. “It’s lovely.”

Libby smiles up at me. “Well, I would love to see all of you again,” she says. And I feel like she means it. “Though I am not so sure your dad is a fan of story time…”

I look at her. She looks at me.

“Actually, that sounds like fun,” I say.

Libby bites back a laugh. “Does it now?”

“Yes,” I answer, shoving my wallet back in my pocket. “We will be there.”

And I mean it. Because the last thing I am going to let happen, after what just went down, is Libby thinking that I am not a good guy. For whatever inexplicable reason that it matters.

Chapter 17

Dax

If there is anything I have learned in the past three years of my life, it’s that being a single dad isn’t easy. Especially if it was the result of the love of your life dying too young.

I’ve never tried to hide the fact that I am a dad. I go to all the school functions, I show up for every parent teacher conference and every dance recital. We go grocery shopping together, the three of us weaving up and down the busy aisles on the hunt for all the ingredients needed for our next Pinterest recipe.

We go to ice cream parlors and Disney movies and shop for new jelly shoes and hair accessories. Because not only am I a dad, I am a girl dad. And that’s a completely different kind of dad.

But like I told Libby, I do compartmentalize. Who I am in the business world is not blended into who I am at home. And I try to keep it that way to protect us. To protect the girls from the cut-throat side of me that isn’t always desirable but is the reason for success and the reason we have the home we do in the part of Boston that we do. It’s the reason I have kept things ‘normal’ for the girls since Tess died. It’s our footing in a world that seems to be made of sand.

Nothing is forever.

Which is why the small moments matter. The little things that bring Delilah and Poppy joy. Things like bike rides and street festivals and story time at the bookstore. Libby’s bookstore.

Walking into Way With Words with my girls on either side of me is a totally different vibe. It doesn’t feel like I am going to war. I’m not holding the usual stony face. I’m not in slacks and a button down. I am smiling as my girls notice a cat near the window and stop to pet it. I am wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, and my hair is still damp from the rushed shower I took after the girls yanked me out of bed. I have a five o’ clock shadow slowly growing in, something I hadn’t realized and don’t usually allow.

But the one thing that is the same is my nerves. Libby is here and she’s in her element. An element my daughters love. And I’m not sure how to feel about that. To be perfectly honest, it scares me.

“Daddy! Daddy look!” Poppy exclaims the moment we walk through the door. It’s a busy day at the shop, with people snagging copies of a new bird watching book that hit the charts last week. There’s also more kids than usual, probably because of story time I assume and most of them are crawling around the store spinning the bookmark wrack, playing with the puppets Libby keeps in the kids’ corner and grabbing coloring sheets to take home.

“What is it?” I ask, following my girls around as they slip into the current of people weaving in and out of the store.

“There’s a new Milo the Puppy book! Can we get it?”