Page 6 of The Single Dad Grump Next Door (Stuck Together In Mermaid Shores)

Chapter Six: Gabe

M ilkshakes and arcade games on a sunny afternoon. It’s simple, wholesome, and exactly the kind of outing that Wren absolutely loves. I’m more of a homebody, but for her, I can choke down my natural introversion and handle the chaos of the pier for a little while. The glare of the flashing lights, the buzz of laughter and conversation, and the salty breeze mixed with the scent of fried dough is overstimulating, to say the least, but worth it to see her smile.

“Daddy, look!” Wren tugs at my arm, pointing to a claw machine inside the arcade. “They have a fox!”

Sure enough, through the grimy glass coated with fingerprints, an orange plush toy is wedged tightly between a neon green alien and a lopsided stuffed banana. I sigh, already knowing where this is going.

Wren is going through a fox obsession at the moment. This morning over breakfast, she delivered all kinds of fun facts about them through mouthfuls of cereal, like that they make forty different kinds of noises. She’s also asked me about a dozen times if she can dye her hair orange. I’m all for supporting a child’s natural curiosity, but there’s no way I’m letting her get within a mile of a bottle of bleach until she’s at least sixteen.

“You know those machines are rigged, right?” I ask her. “If you want a fox plushie, I can buy you one.”

She scoffs. “Rigged or not, I can totally win it,” she declares with the kind of confidence only a seven-year-old can have, and I guess it’s a good thing that she’s more interested in earning her toys than letting me simply order them for her from Amazon or whatever.

I dig into my pocket for a handful of quarters. “Here, then. Prove me wrong.”

Wren takes the coins with a grin and marches to the machine. She lines up the claw with laser-sharp focus, her little tongue poking out as she moves the joystick. I watch, arms crossed, as the claw slowly descends… and misses the fox completely, grazing the alien’s side instead. It closes on nothing and rises again.

She groans, stepping back from the machine. “Ugh. It’s broken.”

“Told you,” I tease.

She narrows her eyes at me. “Let me try again. I just needed to warm up.”

I laugh and hand her another quarter. She tries two more times, missing the fox during both attempts, but each try only makes her more determined. A determination that reminds me of her mother. It’s a familiar stubbornness that I wish I didn’t recognize so well, even after all these years. Though I’d never be spiteful about it, my daughter is a walking reminder of something I’ve lost, simply because she’s so much like her mother.

“Alright,” I cut in after her fourth failed attempt. “How about we go win at something that’s not designed to make you lose?”

She sighs dramatically, throwing up her skinny arms in exasperation. “Fine. Let’s play Skee-Ball!”

“Sounds like a great idea.”

I grin, leading her to the row of wooden alleys. Wren’s laugh echoes over the din of the arcade as she flings her first ball straight into the outer ring, worth only ten points. She does better the next round, landing a few in the middle rings, and by the end of it, she’s dancing with victory as the machine spits out a stream of tickets.

“You’re not too bad,” I say as she waves the tickets like a trophy. “Better than me, anyway. I’m afraid your dad has zero hand-eye coordination.”

“I guess I’m good at Skee-Ball, but not claw machines,” she says, giving me a cheeky grin. “Maybe next time I’ll win the fox.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But my offer’s still good. I’ll happily buy you one.”

She shakes her head. “Nope. I want that fox. And I’m not leaving this town until it’s mine!”

I guess it’s good to have goals, so I don’t bother discouraging her, even if it is my money that will be flooding directly into the claw machine for the sake of this enterprise. By the time she gets it, I’ll probably have paid ten times what I should have for a little toy like that, but it’s not like I don’t have the cash to spare.

Honestly, I never expected to become this wealthy, and even though I’ve had a few years to get used to my success, I still don’t really know how to spend it. For the most part, I just funnel it all into Wren. Her education, her extracurricular activities, her clothes… everything is for her. She’s the only thing that really, truly matters to me.

We spend the next hour bouncing between games, trading quarters for fleeting moments of triumph. By the time we’re done, Wren has swapped her winnings for a dolphin keychain and a Ring Pop. When I make a comment to the guy behind the prize display about how I’m surprised by how a hundred tickets can’t get you very far, he makes a joke about inflation that makes me roll my eyes. Wren is smiling, though—so wide that her cheeks must hurt, and I can’t help but smile back at her.

On the walk home, the noise of the pier fades into the background. The old-school carnival atmosphere gives way to the rhythmic sound of waves lapping against the shore. It’s early evening, but the beach is still crowded with tourists, multicolored umbrellas and towels scattered all around like jewels as we make our way along the boardwalk.

Wren clutches her dolphin keychain, swinging it back and forth as we walk side by side.

“Daddy?” Her voice is soft, hesitant. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, kiddo.”

She glances up at me, her green eyes big as saucers. “Why don’t you ever talk about Mommy?”

The question catches me off guard. I slow my pace, my hands slipping into my pockets. “Oh, I—well, what do you mean? Honey, you know that Mommy is in heaven.”

And thank goodness for all the parenting books that helped me figure out how to explain such a thing to my daughter. She’s too young to understand the horrible details of how her mother died, and even though she’s smart as a whip, I still think she’s too young to really comprehend death. All she knows is that she used to have a mother, whom she can’t remember, and that even though this might make her a little different than some of her classmates, it’s okay because there are all kinds of families that come in a lot of different shapes and sizes.

She shrugs, her gaze dropping to the pavement. “I know. You just don’t really mention her. I don’t even remember her, but I want to. You never tell me about her.”

I feel a pang in my chest, sharp and familiar. Clearly, despite the research I’ve done, I’m still making mistakes.

“I guess it’s hard for me to talk about her sometimes, sweetheart.”

“Why?”

I pause in a less crowded section of the sidewalk, crouching slightly so we’re eye level. “Because she was really special, Wren, and I loved her very much. And sometimes, when I talk about her, it makes me miss her even more. Does that make sense?”

She nods slowly, her curls bouncing. “But… it’s okay to miss her, right?”

“Of course it is. I miss her every day.”

She studies me, her expression unusually serious. “Then why don’t you have a new wife? Isn’t that what grown-ups are supposed to do? My friend Lana at school—her parents got a divorce and now her dad is married to another lady, so she has a stepmom. Lana said I could have a stepmom, too. If you got married again.”

The bluntness of her comment makes me chuckle despite the icy, tangled knot forming in my stomach.

“It’s not about what grown-ups are ‘supposed’ to do, kiddo. It’s about what feels right. And right now, I’m happy just being your dad. In order for me to get married to someone new, I have to start dating, and that takes a lot of time and energy. Plus, I don’t want to confuse you, kid.”

She frowns. “But don’t you ever get lonely?”

Her words hit me harder than they should. I glance away, the wind brushing past us like a ghost, a tendril of the past that we’ll never be able to fully recover.

“I have you, Wren. That’s more than enough for me.”

“But—”

“I mean it, honey,” I say, standing upright and gesturing for us to keep walking. “Maybe we can revisit this conversation in a few years, but for now, I don’t want you to be worrying about whether or not I’m lonely. The only thing you need to be thinking about is what makes you happy. And what flavor ice cream you want to have after dinner tonight.”

I expect her to giggle at that, but she’s still quiet and pensive. “But what would make me happy is seeing you happy, Daddy.”

“I am happy, kid.”

Even as the words tumble past my lips, I know they’re a lie. I can’t remember the last time I felt truly happy. It’s been years, at least. At least since Wren’s mother passed away. Maybe even before that.

And maybe happiness isn’t the right word for what I want. Maybe what I’ve really been missing is a sense of freedom and contentedness. The sort of feeling that I had when I was eighteen and living in New York City, spending every single day studying the one thing that brought me more joy than anything else in the world. Even with Alina breathing down my neck half the time, those were the best days of my life. I was so hopeful back then. So optimistic. So full of pure ambition.

I can barely remember what that’s like.

I’m not even sure if dating again would make me happy. I can’t imagine it. It’s been long enough that I think I’d be reasonably ready to get back out there, but when I think about having to start at ground zero and get to know someone all over again, a wave of exhaustion rolls over me.

“Hey, look,” I say, gesturing ahead of us. “We’re home.”

“That was a really short walk!” Wren chirps, clearly already fully recovered from our unexpectedly serious discussion. “We could go to the pier every single day!”

“Uh… yeah.”

Our conversation lingers in the air as we approach the duplex, tugging at the fringes of my frayed mind. Wren automatically tries the door handle, and when she strikes out, I reach for my keys, only to come up empty. A wave of irritation hits me as I pat my pockets, searching in vain.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What?” Wren asks, tilting her head.

“I forgot the keys,” I admit, pinching the bridge of my nose. “We’re locked out.”

Wren giggles. “Seriously? You forgot something?”

“Yes, me,” I admit with a sigh. “Even I make mistakes.”

I’m tempted to blame Alina. When Wren and I were getting ready to leave the house earlier, I was so distracted by the mere possibility of running into my old rival in the shared hallway outside our respective apartments that I forgot to go through my usual routine of checking for my keys and my wallet.

Which, really, is my fault. Not Alina’s fault. But it’s easier to blame her than to acknowledge the reality that the knowledge of her constant proximity is consuming more of my brain power than I’m comfortable with.

“What do we do now?” Wren asks, her little purple sandals scuffing at the porch steps.

“Wait for the neighbors, I guess,” I say, sitting down on the front steps. The other side of the house is dark and quiet, suggesting that nobody is home. “Unless you want to try breaking a window.”

Wren’s eyes light up. “Can I?”

“No.” I laugh despite myself. “We’re not breaking windows, kiddo.”

If this were the house I grew up in, I wouldn’t hesitate to coax open a window from the outside and coach Wren into climbing inside to unlock the door from within. It’s what my brother and I used to do when we were kids and we had to find a way into the house after school while our parents were still at work.

Unfortunately—or rather, fortunately, I guess—this duplex is protected with a high-tech security system. Even attempting to open one of the windows from the outside while the place is armed would alert the local authorities immediately. I really don’t want to deal with that kind of fiasco right now. Or ever.

We sit in companionable silence for a while, Wren humming softly to herself as she plays with her keychain. The quiet of the evening is almost soothing. At least, until the crunch of gravel breaks it.

I look up, expecting Karina and Andy, the nice couple who I originally thought would be our only neighbors for the summer.

Instead, it’s Alina.

She steps out of the growing shadows, a reusable grocery bag slung over her shoulder, and freezes when she sees us. Her eyes narrow, and her posture stiffens with comical immediacy. Great .

“You’re locked out,” she states, her tone flat.

“Brilliant deduction,” I reply briskly, rising to my feet. “Think you can help us out, or are you going to leave us to fend for ourselves?”

Her lips press into a thin line, but then her gaze shifts to Wren, and her expression softens slightly. “Hey, Wren.”

“Hi, Alina!” Wren bounces to her feet. “We went to the arcade! And Daddy tried to help me win a fox from the claw machine, but he lost.”

I hold back a scoff. I’m the one who lost? She’s the one who was at the controls!

Alina smirks, her eyes flicking to me. “Not surprising.”

Right, because I’m a loser. That’s all I know how to do.

“The machine was rigged,” I mutter.

“Excuses,” she says lightly, stepping past me to unlock the shared front door.

“Alina, do you know how to play the claw machine?” Wren asks, following after her like a little duckling.

“Not really,” Alina admits, glancing over her shoulder. “But I could probably do better than your dad.”

“Oh, you think so?” I say, arching a brow.

“Absolutely.” Her tone is smug, though there’s a flicker of amusement in her honey-colored eyes.

“Well, next time we go to the pier, you’ll have to prove it,” Wren declares.

Alina chuckles softly. “We’ll see.”

She opens the door and steps inside, making her way toward her respective door. Wren darts after her, chattering about the dolphin keychain, and I’m left standing awkwardly in the entryway.

“Thanks for letting us in,” I say finally.

She doesn’t look at me as she jingles the key in the lock and opens the door opposite mine. “Don’t mention it.”

I linger for a moment, feeling the weight of unspoken tension between us as the door slams shut a little too loudly. Wren’s tug on my sleeve pulls me away.

With a resigned sigh, I stoop to lift up the corner of the welcome mat and grab the spare key for the door. I’m going to have to remember to do the same thing outside with the shared door, lest this situation happen again.

I’d do anything to avoid crossing paths with Alina again. Anything, that is, except leave Mermaid Shores. For Wren’s sake really. And because, this time, I refuse to lose to Alina. I was here first, after all.