“You need to apologize,” she stated as a matter of fact.
I bit my lip.
Her eyes narrowed. “It’s what you’d make me do.” Some of her rigidness loosened. “Besides, Mr. Drew didn’t say anything that wasn’t true or that you didn’t wish you could say. Dad really isn’t winning any Father of the Year awards.”
I pointed a silent reprimand her way.
“What? I’m not being disrespectful. Just stating things as they are.”
“Toeing the line.” Not that she was wrong or I hadn’t thought the same, but I didn’t want my sour thoughts about the man to bleed onto our daughter.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. But you will apologize, won’t you?”
I sighed. “Grownup things aren’t always so simple.”
“Or maybe grownups just like to make things more complicated,” she muttered under her breath.
Again, not wrong.
But before I saw Drew again, I needed to figure out a few things. Not about him—he couldn’t have been clearer on where he stood. Or where he’d like to stand, rather. By my side, committed to something lasting.
The problem was, it had been just Sierra and me together for so long. Could I make room for another person?
Haven’t you already?The answer whispered like the faint scent of roses on a summer’s breeze.
I’d never needed a knight to scale my walls, and Drew didn’t really fit that heroic description. He was more a court jester, making me laugh when was too serious or had no reason for amusement.
Either way, he’d infiltrated my life…and my heart, if I were honest. Little by little until he’d expanded my borders to make room for himself. So the question wasn’t whether there was space for Drew; the question was whether I wanted him to stay and allowed him into every corner of my life.
The yes reverberating around my skull had the volume of a megaphone behind it. A smile tickled my lips. I needed to find Drew and tell him his place was right by my side.
Sierra’s arms were folded over her chest as she watched me.
Pretty sure I knew the answer to this, but… “What do you think of Mr. Drew having a, uh, not a permanent—not yet anyway—but, uh, a more fixed, yeah fixed, place in our lives?”
Sheesh. That could have gone more smoothly.
“Are you asking me how I feel about you two dating for real?” Her eyes saidduh,but thankfully she didn’t vocalize her thoughts on what she obviously perceived as an obtuse question on my part.
“Well, yeah.”
“Mom.” Her voice said it all. Slightly exasperated, as if she couldn’t even believe I’d asked.
What had happened to my sweet eight-year-old, and how had this sassy-pants teenage wannabe take her place?
I pulled her into a hug. At this rate, I probably didn’t have too many more years before she’d be too “cool” for such displays.
“So you’re going to talk to him?” There was my little girl, excitement shining from her eyes.
“Yes, I’m going to talk to him,” I reassured her. My life wasn’t the only one Drew had charmed his way into.
“Good.” She picked up my car keys and handed them to me.
“Now?” I laughed as she physically pushed me to the door.
“You’re always telling me not to put off to tomorrow what I can do today. Plus, Mrs. Crabtree from next door said she’d watch me.”
I put my hand on the door jamb to stop Sierra from pushing me all the way out of doors. “When did she say that?”
