Page 72 of Stay With Me

No such luck.

He swung open the door to the en suite and she was seated at her vanity, fixing her hair.

Her gaze caught his in the reflection and she gave him the look of death he’d expected so he attempted to play things off as if nothing was wrong.

“Good morning,” he said as he stooped down to kiss the top of her head.

In response, she growled at him. “Nick. We have a big problem.”

He slipped out of his sweat-soaked shirt and shorts and tossed them into a laundry basket. “We don’t have a problem. I’ll talk to Ari and it’ll be fine.”

Sammie jumped out of her chair and lunged at him. “It willnotbe fine! This is the third—”

“Sammie,” he interjected, holding his hands out in front of him as a force field. “I don’t have time to do this with you right now. I have to get to—”

“You don’t have time. You never have time, and that’s the whole—”

“Sammie. Stop,” he commanded, raising his voice slightly. “Not right now. We’ll deal with this later. I have to get going.”

“Ugh!” She growled again as she slammed out of the en suite. “You are infuriating!”

He held his tongue before he said something he’d regret. Instead, he fumed privately throughout the duration of his shower, then got out and proceeded to shave a bit too aggressively, nicking his chin in the process.

“Fuck,” he swore under his breath and whipped off the towel to dab his chin.

As he dabbed, he studied his reflection and had a brief moment of not recognizing himself. He’d been having a lot of those lately, in the two weeks following his fiftieth birthday.

Turning fifty was hard. He’d been dreading it for the better part of a decade. Ever since the gray hair started showing up. The gray hair that drove him crazy and made him maniacal about staying in shape. His bandwidth was over capacity, but he made time to work out anyway. He was already worried about Sammie leaving him because of everything else. He didn’t need to encourage it by letting himself get fat as he got old.

After dressing, he made his way down to the kitchen to find Sammie rushing around in the kitchen and Ari brooding at the table. Sammie glared at him as she wordlessly shoved a cup of coffee into his hand and pushed him toward the table. That was his cue to try to talk to his daughter.

He cleared his throat. “Ari, sweetheart. I know I missed your—”

“Whatever,” she huffed as she flipped a strand of long brown hair over her shoulder and defensively crossed her arms across her chest.

He lowered himself into a chair across from her and tried again. “I’m sorry I got stuck at work again. I know it was important to—”

“It doesn’t matter!” she hissed as she jumped up from the table. “Sara will be here any minute. I’m going to wait outside.”

“Ari,” he said sternly. “Don’t walk away from me when I’m trying to talk to you.”

She rolled her eyes and huffed again, as she sharply turned to leave the room. “Don’t act like you care all of a sudden!”

The front door slammed.

He managed not to swear and noticed Sammie cut her gaze toward him.

“Abigproblem,” she enunciated.

He clenched his jaw and dropped his forehead into his palm. “I can do without the ‘I told you so’.”

“I guess Jenna was right after all,” she muttered.

His head shot up. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

She shook her head as she stacked a few bills on the counter and then crossed the room to clear Ari’s uneaten breakfast.

“Iwill talk to her,” Sammie offered a bit smugly on her way back to the sink. “Maybe if you can make it home in time for dinner for once, she’ll hear you out.”