Page 97 of The Grump I Loathe

“That’s…actually a good idea,” I admitted, feeling ridiculous for not thinking about that myself.

“I know,” Ali said. “I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

“Bye.” I hung up and headed back to the kitchen. Grace was waiting for me on the stool, looking over the custody draft.

“I have some thoughts,” she said.

I sat down on the stool next to hers. “And I’d love to hear them.”

She nodded. “Did Mom get through to you? Are you going to fix things with Eddie?”

I sighed. I didn’t know if I could. “You’d be okay with that? If I tried?”

Grace grabbed my hand with both of hers. “Of course! I really like her, Dad.”

Staring into Grace’s eyes, I was forced to confront the weight of that truth. I really liked her, too. No, Ilovedher. I’d fallen hard for Eddie. Too hard to let her go, so now I had to figure out how to get her back.

How to have her in my life.

Grace beamed at me, and I immediately amended my last thought. What I needed was to figure out how to have her inourlives.

30

EDDIE

“I’ve been dreaming of pumpkin pie,” Noah said.

“Like at night or in general?” I asked as I rearranged the business cards on our table at GamersCon. We’d been sent to represent Waylaid Games and drum up excitement forRebel Heart 3, well in advance of its release next year, and had been setting up our booth for the past half hour.

“At night,” Noah confirmed. “Like really high-def, 3D dreams.”

I snorted.

He fixed the banner on the wall behind our table. “Is this corner too high? Also, what do you think that means?”

“Bring it down an inch. As for the dreams? Mmm, not sure. Maybe it means you’re really excited for Thanksgiving?”

“Sure,” Noah said, “but at the last second a giant turkey pops out of the middle of the pie.”

I laughed. “Alive?”

He nodded. “It’s gobbling and running up and down the table, kicking yams everywhere.”

I laughed harder. “Cassie would probably say you need your chakras cleansed or something. You want me to get you some clear quartz?”

He thumped down in his seat, seriously considering it. “You think that’ll help?”

I shrugged. “Cassie’s been trying to cleanse my aura or whatever every day lately, and as far as I can tell, it hasn’t changed a thing.” I wasstillon edge.

“Yeah, well, you’ve got bigger problems than turkeys and pies. Is Connor still texting you?”

“I finally blocked him.” He’d been texting me relentlessly for a couple weeks, saying he knew he was wrong and we needed to talk. Time for talking was weeks ago. Instead, I’d gotten nothing but silence from him until out of the blue, he’d started texting me.

“Good. I think you’ve already given him plenty of opportunities to grovel properly.”

I nodded. I might have been open to hearing him out weeks ago. Now, not so much. With Cassie’s help, I’d managed to brush off every single message without crumbling into a post-breakup mess. Sort of.

I still saw him when I closed my eyes. When I was brushing my teeth. When I was pretending that everything was fine and I’d moved on, thoughts of Connor would worm their way into my head.