Page 23 of Secret Love (The Single Dad Playbook #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

PEACEFUL BADGERING

HENLEY

I shoot the guys a text before I leave for Bree’s house. She ended up picking up Audrey from dance, so I still haven’t talked to her about anything.

I need a meeting ASAP.

Penn

I can be there in ten.

I can’t actually meet right now. Just putting it out there that it needs to be soon.

Rhodes

Name the time and we’ll come running.

Bowie

You okay, man?

Yes and no.

Weston

You sure you can’t meet now? Caleb and I are at Bowie’s right now. Come over.

I have to talk to Cassidy. She caught Tru at my house this morning. Tru was wearing nothing but my shirt…

Rhodes

Shit. I mean, my first thought is that’s hot as fuck. But not the Cassidy part.

Right. Not the Cassidy part. And don’t be thinking about Tru in nothing but my shirt.

Rhodes

LOL. Okay! I like jealous Henley!

Penn

I don’t know what to say. Kids are hard, man. Sam is moody as fuck. Right when I thought we had some things figured out, I take him out for chicken last night and he was mopey.

Weston

Remember how you felt between ten and fifteen?

Penn

No

Weston

Well, think about it for a minute and get back to me.

Penn

eye roll emoji That’s what you guys are for, so I don’t have to be all wise and shit.

Rhodes

LOL You said it, not me. We have it in writing that you think we’re wise. I like how this day is turning out. Sorry, Hen. I’m not discounting your feelings, man. Let us know how your talk with Cassidy goes.

Will do. I’ll see where you guys are after this.

I knock on the door and am about to knock again when the door opens. Gracie is standing there in the outfit she wore to the last Super Bowl, a white tux with a turquoise bowtie.

I lift my eyebrows. “You’re looking great. Going somewhere, peanut?”

She smiles coyly. “Nope. Come in, Father.”

“Father…” I make a face at her and she presses her lips together to keep from laughing. “Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?”

“I’m Gracie!” she insists. “Come on.” She turns and waves her hand for me to follow.

We walk through the house and to the back door, which she opens with a flourish. A ballad plays over the outdoor speakers. Audrey is standing in front of a table set for two and is in one of her pretty dresses. Electric candles are lit all over the deck and table.

“Hi, Daddy.” She smiles and holds out a chair for me, motioning for me to have a seat.

I move toward her and kiss her cheek. “Hi, pumpkin. You look lovely.”

“Thank you.” Her smile widens when I sit down and she puts a napkin over my lap.

“Wow. What did I do to deserve all this?”

A throat is cleared and I look up to see Cassidy, who is also dressed up. I smile at her and am relieved when she smiles back. It’s only then that I notice Bree is standing behind her, looking like she just swallowed something painful. I get a sudden sense of dread.

“What’s going on, girls?”

“We wanted to do something nice for the two of you,” Cassidy says, moving aside and motioning for Bree to sit down next to me. “Since you both do so much for us.”

I’d foolishly thought maybe the other place setting was for Cassidy and me to talk things over.

“Girls,” Bree starts…

“Wine?” Cassidy interrupts, holding up the bottle of chilled wine out of the ice bucket. She pulls out a bottle opener. “I looked up how to do it online.”

“I’ll do that.” I take it from her and open the bottle. “Would you like some?” I ask Bree.

She nods and I fill our glasses.

“What is this really about?” I ask Cassidy and then Audrey and Gracie. Their looks are fleeting before also turning toward Cassidy.

“What I said,” Cassidy says, her smile faltering for only a second. “We wanted to do something nice for you guys.”

“I do need to talk to your mother, but then I want to talk to all of you,” I say.

Cassidy gulps and nods. “We’ll bring out the food and you can take all the time you need to talk and…and enjoy being outside on this nice day.”

“Smell the flowers!” Gracie yells across the deck.

Audrey giggles and goes into the kitchen. Cassidy and Gracie follow her inside and Bree and I are left to look at each other in concern.

“Are our daughters trying to matchmake us?” Bree whispers. She picks up her glass of wine and takes a long gulp.

“It looks that way.” I take a long drink myself.

“What happened this morning? Cassidy wouldn’t talk about it and then they’ve been super secretive all afternoon, shooing me out of the kitchen any time I tried to go in.”

“There was a woman at my house when Cassidy came in this morning.” I scrunch up my nose. “Not the way I wanted to tell any of you about this.”

“Oh. Oh .” She looks at me with interest and then clinks my glass. But then her shoulders deflate. “Wait, what exactly did Cassidy see? Because she was upset.” Her eyes widen. “Did she see you having sex with someone?”

“ No . No, she didn’t.” I look around to make sure the girls aren’t nearby. “But a heads-up that she was coming inside would’ve been nice. I don’t want them to ever feel like they have to knock when they come to my house, but…yeah, it could’ve been much worse.” I shudder thinking about it.

“Well, who is it?” Bree waves her hand to hurry me along. “And you still haven’t said what she saw.”

“It’s Tru Seymour and she was in my shirt.”

Bree leans back in her chair and then picks up her glass and empties it in one long gulp.

“You would pick the one person who makes it complicated,” she groans.

“I don’t really get why it has to be?—”

“She’s her teacher, Henley.”

“I met her before she was her teacher.”

She stares at me in shock and then shakes her head. “I should’ve known. I thought you were dressed extra nice for a teacher conference.” She snorts and then sits up straight when the girls bring out salads and dinner rolls. We thank them and start eating, talking quietly so the girls don’t hear us.

“I’m glad you’re dating, Hen. Not who I would’ve picked, but—” She lifts her shoulder.

“Good thing I wasn’t asking you,” I say dryly and she smirks.

“Touché. And I didn't mean anything bad about it. Just…it is complicated with her being Cassidy’s teacher. They’re working so hard together on the reading stuff…” She leans in. “And she’s, what? Early twenties?”

I scrub my hand over my face. “God, Bree. You don't have to make it sound so dirty. She's twenty-four. Yeah, she’s young. But she’s brilliant and funny and we click.”

“You really like her,” she says, her eyes assessing me shrewdly.

“Yes, I really like her. But this conversation might be pointless after she went running out of the house today, traumatized because she had traumatized our daughter. She didn't want to do this yet, get involved with me. So, it's probably a non-issue. I’m pretty sure she dumped me this morning.”

“What? Already? Why? I'm sorry. No, I’m sure she’ll come back around. She was probably just embarrassed and?—”

We stop when the girls bring out steaks and baked potatoes.

“Steak! What is this?” I look up at the girls who are all standing shy but proud near the table. “Someone’s been holding out on their cooking skills before now.”

Cassidy lifts her shoulder in a shrug that looks just like her mother and I laugh. “We’ve been watching cooking shows.”

“And lots of YouTube videos,” Audrey adds.

Gracie starts to say something and Cassidy motions for them to follow her back into the kitchen. They scurry off like little elves.

“This is weird,” I say under my breath. “What are we going to do about this?”

“We need to have a talk with them. Tonight. But first, I want to eat this steak and have another glass of wine in peace.”

I chuckle. “Oh, this is peaceful for you? Maybe I can badger you a little bit about Alex to even it out a little bit.”

She frowns and then laughs. “Is that what I’m doing? Badgering? Ugh. Sorry. It’s just…you haven’t really dated anyone and it’s an important decision, who we have in the kids’ lives.”

“I know it is, and I don’t take it lightly. I don’t just bring anyone into my house…Tru’s different.”

“I can see that.” She smiles. “I’m happy for you, Hen. If you’re happy, I’m happy. And the girls will get on board too.”

“As I said, I think it’s all up in the air, so?—”

Surprise flickers across Bree’s face as she takes a bite of the steak. “Not bad.”

I agree. “I’m going to put them to work cooking more often.”

When they bring out the dessert—vanilla ice cream with strawberries and chocolate syrup—I ask them to join us at the table. They’re so quick to bring it out that it’s obvious they’d already prepared their somewhat heartier portions of dessert.

I point at Gracie’s bowl and then mine. “Did you accidentally give me the baby bear portion and take the papa bear portion?”

She frowns and shakes her head. “They look the same to me.”

“Mm-hmm,” I tease and she hurries and takes a big bite of her ice cream. “So, your mom and I want to talk to you. Thanks for this amazing dinner. It’s all been delicious and we’re both going to have you start cooking more.”

We laugh when they look at each other like Oops, what have we done?

“But we need to talk about why you guys did this for us. I think maybe because your mom and I are such good friends and that's unusual to see with some divorced parents, it could seem like maybe there’s hope of us getting back together.” I look at each one of them in the eye and my heart hurts with how closely they're listening and how hopeful they look. “Your mom and I stayed together longer than we probably should have because of wanting to make sure we provided a good home for our little ladies. We still want that for you, but like we’ve said before, we're not getting back together.”

Gracie’s lip pokes out. “But why?”

“Because we're better like this,” Bree says. “We're better as friends. We can love you better this way. We can love each other better this way. And there will be other people in our lives.” She looks at me and I nod.

“Exactly. Your mom is dating Alex and happy with him. Whoever we’re with, you guys are always taken into consideration.”

Cassidy's face falls. “But my teacher? You're really going to date my teacher?”

“Wait, what?” Audrey says. “What do you mean?”

“He's with Miss Seymour,” Cassidy says, flinging her arm my way.

I hold up my hand. “I wish I’d had a chance to talk to you all about it before you found out, Cassidy. I like Miss Seymour. Tru. I like her a lot. But she's had reservations about being with me because she's your teacher too, and I don't know what's going to happen with her. But we need to first establish that your mom and I are not happening. We decided that a long time ago when we got divorced, and that's not changing.”

Audrey nods like she expected this. “I think it's cool that you guys get along so well. Briana’s parents are divorced and they hate each other. And they always make her feel bad when she goes to the other parent’s house. She says it’s the worst.”

“I think it’s cool that you get along too,” Cassidy says, “but I still don't understand why you're not perfect for each other. It seems like you are to me.”

“I like Miss Seymour,” Gracie says. “I like her a lot. I didn't know you were dating her. It's weird, but if you were going to date anybody, I guess she's the best one it could be besides Mom.” She looks at Bree like she’s making sure that’s okay to say.

Bree smiles reassuringly at her.

Cassidy groans. “No, it's wrong. It's weird. And I don't like it.”

“Your dad is being gracious to talk this over with all of us. When I started dating Alex, I didn’t ask your permission, and your dad doesn’t have to ask our permission about Miss Seymour either. Tru,” she adds, smirking at me.

Cassidy starts crying. “It’s so embarrassing. I already get made fun of at school and now everyone will talk about this.”

“No one will kn—” I start, but she runs inside.

I follow her, but she’s faster and when I knock on the door, she yells.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Fucking hell.

Penn and Rhodes meet us at Bowie’s. Weston runs Caleb home to hand him off to Sadie and when he walks in, he slaps The Single Dad Playbook on the table. We talk about the way my night went right off the bat. They look as bewildered as I feel.

Weston points at our notebook. “I’m sorry we don’t really have the advice for you on all this, Hen. We’re looking at you to lead the way through the teenage years.”

I shake my head, as I let out a long exhale. “And hopefully none of you will ever have to go through a divorce.” I give Bowie an apologetic look because what he went through with his ex-girlfriend over Becca was worse than any divorce. He squeezes my shoulder in response. “But guys, I think it might be the Wild, Wild West when it comes to teenagers. I called Jeremy on the way over here and he alluded to as much. No help whatsoever.” I chuckle as I see the concerned looks on their faces. “It ended okay tonight. Cassidy’s gonna take a while, but I think she’ll come around.”

“What about Tru? What’s happening with her?” Rhodes asks.

“She ended things…or paused them, I guess.” I lean forward, my elbows on my knees and looked down. “After the best night I’ve ever had. I don’t know…I’m going to respect her wishes, but fuck, the last thing I want from her is space.”