Page 36 of This Time Around (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #3)

J ack walked into the living room to find two of the three most cherished females in his life sprawled on opposite ends of the sofa, each with an iPhone in her hand.

His mother looked up at him and smiled. “I really like this new Kegel reminder app your team developed,” she said. “It’s good for ladies my age who need to strengthen their pelvic floors, so we don’t tinkle.”

“What’s a pelvic floor?” Paige asked as she glanced up from her own phone.

Er, make that Jack’s phone.

“Paige,” he said in his most stern voice. “What are you doing with my phone?”

“Well mine’s not working right now, so?—”

“I know yours isn’t working right now,” he said through gritted teeth. “And do you think that might have something to do with the fact that you deliberately ignored me the two thousand times I told you not to take your phone into the bathroom?”

His daughter’s bottom lip quivered a little, and Jack resisted the urge to back down. Some lessons she had to learn the hard way.

“Well, yeah, but?—”

“No buts,” he said. “Your phone is a privilege, and you lost that privilege when you splashed water on it.”

“But I didn’t think a few drops of water would ruin it like that.”

“We’ll know in a few hours if it’s ruined. You did the right thing putting it in rice like I showed you. But you did the wrong thing by taking it in there in the first place, and you’re also doing the wrong thing by using my phone right now without asking.”

Her eyes went a little bit watery, but she stuck out her jaw anyway. “But I had to text Allie,” she said. “We were making plans to go bra shopping and I had to tell her that I messed up and I couldn’t text her like I said I could.”

An uneasy feeling tickled the center of Jack’s gut. He held out his hand. “Give me the phone, please.”

Paige got up and walked over, setting it in his palm. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

“We all make mistakes,” he said, scrolling back through his daughter’s texts to see that very word jumping out at him.

Made a mistake.

Plz don’t text me, K?

Oh, shit. He scrolled down, his gut hitting rock bottom as he read Allie’s reply:

Total mistake, for sure! Was thinking the same. Won’t text you again.

Jack felt nauseated. He stared at the words, trying to make sense of them.

“What’s wrong, Daddy?”

He looked down at his daughter to see her staring up at him with a concerned look on her face.

“Honey,” he said slowly. “When you use someone else’s phone to send a text message, you need to tell them it’s you and not the person whose phone you’re borrowing.”

“But Allie knew it was me,” Paige protested. “She even seemed like she knew about how I messed up and got water on the phone.”

“It does seem like that, doesn’t it?”

Total mistake, for sure!

Jesus Christ. Did she really feel that way, or was she just responding to what she thought he’d said? He was too old for this sort of guessing game.

He glanced again at his daughter’s worried face. He ordered himself not to panic, to stay focused on this teaching moment with his kid. The rest could wait for later.

“Paige,” he said slowly. “What are some of the lessons you’ve learned here this morning?”

His daughter scuffed her turquoise Converse sneaker on the carpet and scrunched up her forehead. “Not to take my phone in the bathroom,” she mumbled. “And not to use your phone without asking.”

“And?”

“And not to text people without telling who I am.”

“Right. Now come here.”

He stooped down and opened his arms, and Paige stepped into them.

He hugged her tight, and heard a small sniffle close to his ear.

She clung to him like a baby koala, her bony angles and the scent of strawberry shampoo overpowering the poised young woman who insisted she needed a training bra.

Paige squeezed him back, and Jack wondered how he ever thought he knew what love was before he had a daughter.

“All right,” he said as he released her. “I want you to go to your room and think about what you’ve done. When I come get you, we’re going to talk about consequences and what other privileges you’ll be giving up besides the phone.”

She nodded. “Okay, Daddy.” She turned and walked away.

He straightened up and turned to see his mom watching him from the couch. She set down her phone and patted the space beside her.

“Very nice, son.”

“Thanks.” Jack sighed and walked over, dropping into the space beside her. “It’s going to get harder, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she told him. “But you can handle it.”

“I wish I had your confidence.”

She put her hand on his back and rubbed a slow, circular pattern the way she used to when he was a little boy who couldn’t sleep.

“You’re already ten times the father your dad ever was,” she said.

“You grew up without any sort of male role model at all. It’s nothing short of miraculous that you turned out to be such an amazing dad. ”

He smiled and put his hand on hers. “That’s because I had a mom who was badass enough to be both parents.”

She laughed and put an arm around him, rocking a little. “I did my best.”

Jack raked his fingers through his hair and glanced at his phone. The message wasn’t lighting up the screen anymore, but he could still picture it in his mind.

Total mistake, for sure!

Dammit to hell.

“Trouble in paradise?” his mom asked, reading his mind.

Or reading his text messages. He could never really hide anything from her.

“Yeah,” Jack muttered and flipped the phone face down. “I guess I need to make a phone call.”

“I take it you and Allie are seeing each other again?”

“I don’t know.” Jack dragged a hand down his chin. “Maybe. It’s complicated.”

“I can imagine. I’ve seen that look in your eye all week.”

“What look?”

“The one you used to get when you were seventeen years old and you sat by the phone waiting to hear if her parents would let her go out with you that night.”

He snorted at the memory, thinking life might’ve been easier before the advent of cell phones. “Yeah, it might be a little like that. I’m not so sure she wants to hear from me right now.”

“She always had her pride,” his mom said, and he wondered how much she knew. “It was one of the things you always loved about her. Also one of the things that got in the way, if I remember right.”

“Probably true for both of us.”

His mom patted his knee again and looked up at him, her expression serious. “You want a little unsolicited advice from the person who not only incubated you for nine months, but watched you navigate every great romance of your life?”

He snorted. “Depends. Will this person feel obligated to describe her episiotomy as a way to emphasize the challenges of raising me?”

“Not this time.” She pressed her lips together the way she often did while trying to think of the kindest way possible to suggest he remove his own head from his butt. “Go see her in person.”

“Who, Allie?”

“Yes, Allie. I don’t know if Paige messed something up or if you messed it up yourself or if Allie did. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you probably can’t un-mess it using the same tool that caused the mess in the first place.”

She likely had a point. Still, what was he supposed to do? “I can’t just show up on her doorstep.”

“Sure you can. It’s better that way. No phone calls. No text messages. No Spacebook messages. Just real, old-fashioned face-to-face dialogue.”

He laughed, both at the earnestness of her reply and her blending of Facebook and My Space.

Still, he felt pretty sure his mom was oversimplifying things a bit.

She obviously didn’t realize Allie had just told him they were better off not starting down that road again.

If that’s how she really felt, was it really his place to convince her otherwise?

Maybe.

He cleared his throat and lifted his eyes back to his mom’s face. “You’re okay watching Paige for an hour?”

She smiled. “I insist.”

As soon as Jack had worked out his daughter’s punishment and doled out at least a million hugs and snuggles, he told her he needed to run an errand.

“Are you going to see Allie?” she asked.

He smoothed her hair back from her face. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you have that look .”

“Jeez,” he muttered, not bothering to ask what look she was talking about. “You’re as bad as your grandma.”

Paige grinned, obviously taking it as a compliment. “Can you find out if Allie wants to take me shopping this week? Like maybe she could pick me up after school and we could have ice cream or something and then go to the mall.”

“We’ll see.” He kept it vague, not wanting to get her hopes up. If Allie meant it about the last night being a mistake, what did that mean for their friendship?

“I love you, daddy.”

“I love you, too, Noodle Clump.”

She giggled and squeezed him tight, fortifying him with a hefty dose of bravery as he set out to talk with Allie about last night.

But standing on her doorstep now, he felt his bravery trickling from his forehead and springing up under his arms. God, did he always have to sweat when he got nervous?

He took a few deep breaths, getting his bearings.

The air smelled spicy, like autumn leaves and fresh bark dust. There was a clay pot of geraniums next to the front door, their carrot-scented red blossoms a cheerful contrast to the pale yellow siding on the house.

The white plantation shutters looked like they’d gotten a fresh coat of paint, and Jack wondered when Allie had found time to do all this.

Must have been sometime today, since he hadn’t noticed it the night before.

He took one more deep breath and turned his attention back to the door. He knocked once, then waited. The sign telling him to come right in had vanished, so all he could do was stand here. He felt itchy in his own skin, uncomfortable and awkward.