Page 40 of Secret Love (The Single Dad Playbook #2)

CHAPTER FORTY

SHAPES AND SIZES

TRU

Between school and dance and taking Henley to PT when I can, the days fly by. Henley is trying so hard to be his normal, cheerful self, but I can see the toll it’s taking on him. He has circles under his eyes and even when the guys are over, it’s almost as if he’s hanging back from conversation, an onlooker instead of one of the ringleaders.

One thing that hasn’t changed is his desire for me…unless it’s that he wants me even more. Trying to have sex without hurting him has been challenging and comical and the highlight of all of this.

I’ve been on top a lot. In bed, on the couch, on the shower bench. We’ve tried it all, and he says he’s frustrated with not being able to do all he wants with his body, but when it comes to sex, he is loving every second of seeing me ride him.

I have no complaints whatsoever.

He’s stopped trying to force me to get out of the house. I think he knew I wasn’t going to stand for one more thoughtful get out and enjoy this day conversation. But this cheerful front he’s trying so hard to portray is almost worse.

We stop by my house to pick up a few things and my mom hugs us when she walks in.

“Why don’t we just pack everything?” Henley asks.

My mom laughs. “When are you going to give in and move in with Henley?” she asks.

I make a face. “You too now, huh?”

“Can you please convince her to move in with me while I go to the bathroom, Stephanie?”

My mom’s still laughing as he walks out. “He’s pretty convincing. What’s holding you back?”

There’s a knock at the door and I walk toward it.

“Were you expecting anyone?”

“No.” She shakes her head and tries to look out the window.

I open the door and there stands my dad. My eyes narrow on him. “What are you doing here?”

“Is that any way to greet your father?”

“Seems like you wanted the element of surprise since you didn’t let anyone know you were coming.” I fold my arms and he shoots me an irritated look.

“It’s cold out here, Trudi. Let me in.”

I turn back and my mom nods at me, so I open the door wider.

My dad saunters in like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He’s a good-looking man, and he knows it. He turns his most charming smile on my mom and I wait to see if it’s going to work on her.

“You look beautiful, Stephanie,” he says, moving toward her.

He reaches out to hug her and she holds up a hand before he can.

“We don’t need to hug,” she says. “If your daughter wants a hug, that’s a different story, but I don’t need one from you. What are you doing here, Allen?”

“Come on, Stephanie. How long are we going to play this game? I’ve said I’m sorry. What more do I have to do to prove that I want you back?”

Her lips flatten. “Not a damn thing. Because I don’t care if you want me back. I said I was done and I meant it.”

His nostrils flare and he takes a closer step. “It’s sad that you think you’re better off without me. No one’s going to want your sorry ass at this age.”

“Dad!”

My mom laughs and when her eyes fill with tears, I brace myself because when he makes her cry, I always cry. It also usually means she’s about to soften. He makes her cry and she caves.

“The only thing sorry about my ass is that I put up with yours for so long. I have no idea why I thought so little of myself that I didn’t stand up to you sooner, but you know what?” She moves in closer to him and gets in his face, her finger pointing in time with her next few words. “Every minute away from you has been the best time of my life. I wish I’d left you years ago. I also wish you’d work to have a relationship with your daughter, but as it is, you don’t deserve her either. I’d suggest you get the message and go work on yourself for a while. It won’t bring me back, but it just might salvage things between you and her.” She looks at me. “If you even want that, Tru. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.”

“I’m her goddamned father. It’s not like she has another option here,” my dad yells.

Henley limps into the room. His eyes land on me and he exhales in relief before they settle on my dad. The expression on his face is unlike any I’ve ever seen on him. Cold and fierce.

“It’s your honor to call Tru your daughter,” Henley says. “A privilege, not a right. One that you should cherish until your dying day because you’ve got such a special daughter here.”

“Who the hell are you?” Dad snaps.

“I’m Henley, Tru’s boyfriend, partner, man…fill in the blank. And it’s only because you’re her father that I don’t wipe the floor with you for talking to your daughter and her mother like you just did.”

I smile despite the tension in the room.

My dad swallows hard.

“You ladies okay?” Henley asks, looking at me and then my mom.

“Allen showed up out of the blue and I was just leaving,” my mom says. She looks at my dad pointedly. “I hope you brought the divorce papers and signed them. There’s no sense in prolonging this.”

“We need to talk about this, Stephanie,” he argues.

“I’m done talking about it. Sign the papers .” She leaves the room and a minute later, I hear her pulling out of the driveway.

There’s an awkward pause as we all stand there, no one knowing what to say.

“You and your mom sure are in a big hurry to get rid of me,” Dad says.

I lift a shoulder. “You haven’t exactly made being around you an enjoyable experience.”

“It was a mistake for me to come here.” My dad’s face is red, the vein in his forehead popping.

“Feel free to see your way out.”

He huffs out a disbelieving breath and walks to the door.

“Sign the papers!” I say to his back.

The door slamming is his response.

Henley puts his hand on my cheek and looks at me with concern.

“I’m okay.” I sag into Henley and he puts his arms around me, holding me tight.

“How about we get takeout from Starlight Cafe or Rose & Thorn tonight?” he suggests on our way to his house. “Or The Fairy Hut…”

It’s almost seven o’clock on a Friday night and Jupiter Lane is bustling.

Black and silver wreaths line every lamppost and there are pumpkins and ghosts and witches and skulls everywhere we look. Silver Hills makes Halloween the classiest I’ve ever seen it. The color theme is mostly silver, black, and green with more white pumpkins than orange. I’ve always loved Halloween in every look, so I’m here for all of it, but this is a really fun and gorgeous take on it.

“What sounds good to you?” I ask.

“I’m not really hungry.”

He hasn’t had much of an appetite for a while now.

“I wish we could think of something that sounds good to you,” I say.

“I’m such a fucking downer all the time,” he mutters. “I don’t know why you keep putting up with me.”

“Hey. You are not. You’re going through a hard time. I want you on your bad days and your good days, and everything in between.”

He doesn’t say anything and when I look at him again, he’s starting to smile.

“What?” I ask.

“That sort of sounded like a wedding vow to me.”

The only thing I have to throw at him is a napkin from the car, so it sort of flutters his way with no punch.

“Shush,” I tell him.

“Oh shit!” he says.

I jump and try to focus on the road. “What?”

“I can’t believe I’ve forgotten the pumpkins. Do you mind if we stop by the store to pick some up? It’s almost Halloween and I haven’t even done the pumpkins. The girls will be disappointed if we don’t do them together like we do every year.” He sounds both disappointed and excited.

I turn into the grocery store parking lot, chasing after whatever makes him excited right now.

“What do you do to the pumpkins?”

He grins. “You’ll have to wait and see. They’ll be pricier here, but Nelson’s Pumpkin Patch is probably picked over by now.” He’s reaching for his crutches before I’ve fully parked, and I put my hand on his arm.

“Why don’t you let me go pick them out? You’ve done too much today already with PT and then that episode with my dad.”

“I’ll be okay.”

I stare him down and he sighs.

“Okay, but there needs to be a variety of sizes. I like some round, plump ones and tall, skinny ones in there too.”

I laugh at that. “Okay. Round, plump, check. Tall, skinny, check.” I look back at the pile of them outside the store. “Do you want them to be orange or white?”

“Surprise me.”

Oh, he’s so cute.

He gives me some cash and I shake my head, not taking it from him.

“Don’t argue with me, Tru.”

I roll my eyes and take the money.

“How many are we talking? Three? Five?”

He gives me a look like Surely, you jest. “Two dozen.”

My mouth falls open. “Twenty-four pumpkins.”

He nods, bright-eyed like a little boy, and I’d buy a hundred pumpkins to make him look like this.

“Okay! Twenty-four surprise pumpkins coming right up.”

“I need to help you get them in the?—”

I hold up my hand. “Don’t you dare. We are not going to undo all your hard work with a pumpkin excursion.”

He laughs and leans his head back on the seat. “Fine. I don’t like it, but fine.”

I lean over and kiss him and he hums.

“Now this I like a lot…” He deepens the kiss and my insides turn to jelly.

His hands are wandering fast, and I have to pull myself away so we’re not caught by another officer.

As I’m shopping for the perfect pumpkins, I come up with what might be a great idea if I can pull it off. Since Henley’s accident, it’s typical for me to hear from not just my new girlfriends, but all of Henley’s friends throughout the day. They text him to see how he’s doing and then they text me to see how he’s really doing.

I text everyone while I’m waiting in the checkout line.

So…I didn’t discover until now just how much Henley loves Halloween. With everything going on, I don’t think he even realized until tonight that it’s almost here. What if we had a surprise Halloween party at his house next week? Everyone dress up. You can come after you’ve taken the kids trick-or-treating or we’ll have plenty of treats for them at the house…what do you think?

The yeses start rolling in right away, first from Penn and then Sadie and Elle, and by the time we get home with all of the pumpkins, I’ve heard from everyone, and they’re all in.

Over the next week, Henley and the girls make the cutest pumpkins I’ve ever seen. They have doorknob eyes, metal drawer pull mouths, nuts and bolts noses, squiggly screw hair—you name it, every hardware appliance or tool or old piece of scrap metal that can be spared is used to make pumpkin faces. When he’s done with one, he names them, and every time the girls come over, they want to meet his new creations. Gracie talks to Betty and Charlene, her two favorites, like they’re her new besties.

The diversion has been good for him and while he works on them, I tell him I’m decorating his house and yard for Halloween, so our new pumpkin family can feel at home. I carry over the color theme from town—black, white, and green—except we have the orange pumpkins in the mix too.

The girls know about the party, and they’ve been so excited about it, helping with the decorating and working on Henley’s costume. Bree even contributes extra pampas grass she’s not using for her wedding and says she and Alex will stop by the party.

On Halloween morning, Henley’s in the kitchen when I leave for school.

“You look cute,” he says, when I lean down to kiss him.

I’m going low-key with a witch's hat and spider earrings, so I can save my better costume for later.

“I’m not used to the girls taking care of my costume. Have you seen what they’re working on?”

I nod, unable to hide my grin. “It’s gonna be good, don’t worry.”

It's a fun day at school. The kids are more chatty than usual because of all the candy they're getting in every class. But I manage to reel them in when it counts.

Bowie takes Henley to his PT appointment so I can finish getting things ready for tonight, and my mom comes over to help. Bree drops the girls off not long before Henley is supposed to come home, and she can’t get over how great the house looks.

“If you ever need a job, you could always come work with me in the wedding business,” she says, pointing at me before she gets in her car.

“I’m honored you’d even consider that,” I tell her, pleased.

The plan Henley thinks is happening is that after Bowie drops him off, Henley will dress up and sit by the front door passing out candy, while the girls go trick-or-treating. And then we'll hang out with them for a little while afterwards.

When he gets home, the girls are already dressed up in their monster outfits, and they giggle as they lead him to his room to show him the costume they got for him. I go get ready in another bathroom, piling my hair high around a cutoff two-liter bottle. It’s giving Bridgerton vibes, but this look came out long before the idea of Bridgerton was conceived. I angle a mirror to look at the back and laugh at how high it is. My dress is green, rather than the typical white usually worn with this costume, but the style is so similar to the movie that it’ll still be obvious.

The girls peek into the bathroom.

“Oh my God, you look amazing,” Cassidy says.

“Wow,” Audrey says. “So cool.”

“I want that hair next year,” Gracie says.

“Do you think he has any idea about the party?” I whisper.

“Not at all. He’s ready and we told him you’d be there in a second.”

The girls move out of the bathroom and run downstairs and when I step into the hall, Henley is opening his bedroom door. We stare at each other and start laughing.

“You look perfect,” I tell him. “Frankenstein has never looked so good.”

“Are you the bride of Frankenstein?” he asks, lips quirking up. He stares at my hair in awe and then down my body.

I hold my hand up. “No, no. Not the bride. I’m the girlfriend of Frankenstein. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

I still haven’t stopped teasing him about his proposal…I probably won’t ever stop.

His head falls back as he laughs. “We will have to remedy this,” he tells me. “You look like a bride to me.”

My heart never fails to lose its mind when he says things like that.

“Look at you though.” I laugh when he walks toward me. “This costume works perfectly with your brace. You don’t even have to fake the stiffness…it’s built in. And the girls did an amazing job on your makeup. I'm impressed.”

He laughs. “Yes, they did. I’m guessing you helped them with this idea? Because it is pretty perfect for what I'm going through.” He points to the bolt coming out of his head and we laugh.

“We might have brainstormed together.”

His hand grips my waist and he tugs me closer. “Come here.” His fingers trace over my blood-red lips. “I love these red lips. Gives me all kinds of ideas for later.”

“These red lips are game,” I say, pulling his finger into my mouth and sucking it.

He hisses in a breath.

Something clatters downstairs and we both freeze.

“Everything okay down there?” he calls.

There’s a long pause and I hold my breath, wondering if the surprise is blown.

“Yes, Daddy. Everything’s fine,” Audrey calls back.

My body relaxes and I hope that we’ve taken long enough getting ready that everyone has gotten in place by now.

“Should we go hand out candy?” I touch his smoothed-down hair, laughing at how stiff it is.

“Let’s do it.”

We walk downstairs and the lights have been turned off, so there’s only the glow of the twinkle lights from outside.

“Why is it so dark down here?” Henley asks.

When we reach the foyer, the lights come on at the same time as the music, and everyone is standing there, all dressed up in their Halloween costumes. Rhodes is a mummy, and Levi is a ninja. Elle is Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s . Bowie and Becca are pirates. Penn is Batman and Sam is a Colorado Mustang. Calista and Javi are Beauty and the Beast. My mom is a teddy bear. Everyone looks phenomenal . But Weston, Sadie, and Caleb win the prize for most creative costumes…Weston is Colonel Sanders, and Sadie and Caleb are the chickens.

“Boo!” They all yell.

Henley holds onto my hand and the wall and once he’s caught his breath, he starts laughing.

“Holy shit, are you all trying to kill me?” He clutches his heart and everyone laughs.

Penn reaches out and bumps his fist. “Did we really manage to surprise you?”

Sam is beside Penn, and Henley bumps his fist next.

“Looking good, Sam,” he says.

Sam flushes and then stares at Cassidy with adoration. The few times I’ve seen him around the girls, it’s obvious he’s starstruck by Cassidy. From what I can tell, Cassidy is clueless about his crush.

“Dad had no idea…did you?” Cassidy says, turning to smirk at Henley.

“That you guys were creating this elaborate surprise behind my back?” He bops her nose and turns to me, his eyes warm. “No idea.”

He tugs me closer and leans in.

“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” he says under his breath.

“Trying to do my part to keep you hopping, Henley Ward. And that smile looks really good on you.”

The party is a success. Henley laughs more than he has in so long, and when we crawl into his bed that night, he sighs and turns to look at me.

“You make everything better, Tru,” he says.

“That’s how I feel about you too.”

“So, how long did Frankenstein and his girlfriend date before they got married?” He nuzzles into my neck and his fingers trail up between my legs.

“You’d have to ask him,” I say, already heating up from his touch.

I kiss him before he gets a chance to say anything else, too hungry for him to think about what’s next…

Except this, right here, right now.

“I’m ready to move in with you if you still want me,” I tell him.

His eyes widen and he grins. “Really?”

“Really.”

“What made you decide that?”

“I don’t want to hold back from you for another second. Hearing the regrets my mom has for holding onto my dad all those years…I don’t want to regret a single thing. I want to be with you. Wasting a minute missing out on this beautiful thing we have because of fear or being cautious…I trust you. I trust our love. I don’t have anything to be afraid of when it comes to choosing you.”

He lowers his forehead to mine. “This is the best news ever…the only thing that would be better is if you’d become my bride.” He grins, already knowing how I’m going to react.

“One of these days, I’m going to surprise you and say yes.”

“I’m living for that day.” His hand drops to my hip and he kisses me until I’m one limp noodle. “I’m living for all the days that you’re by my side.”

“We’re forever, Henley.”