He blinked, not sure how he felt about her dining there with her chef father, on a first-name basis with the woman who heldhis fate in her hands, discussing him like he was the special of the day.
“She liked you,” she added, lifting her brows. “Said you were either going to be brilliant or a disaster, and she couldn’t wait to find out which. Coming from Isobel, that’s basically a love letter.”
He hated that the comment gave him hope, but it did.
“What else did you talk about with…Isobel?”
“Your baby.”
He jerked back, not sure how to take that or the unmitigated candor of this woman. “Dinner convo must have been dry.”
She laughed. “Not in the least. They were talking about what a challenge it is to be a single parent in the restaurant industry. Dad and Isobel are both veterans of that war.”
“You were raised by a single father?”
“Split my time,” she said. “Mom and Dad divorced when I was seven. He fought hard for shared custody and the result was…a challenge for him, too. So…”
“So, in other words, it’s never going to end until I find a childcare solution,” he said. “No wonder he’s told me five different ways to do just that.”
“Any progress?” she asked.
“Honestly? No.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I tried daycare. That was a disaster—he screamed for two straight hours, and they called me to come get him. I tried bringing him to class, and you know how that went down.”
“Are your parents around? Or Atlas’s mother’s parents?”
He made a face. “They’re in California and we’ve come to an agreement that I can keep him here with me, mostly because I’m living in…” He tried to think how to describe the Summer House and failed. “An unusual situation,” he said.
She cocked a brow with interest.
“I’m surrounded by family and friends who might as well be family, all of whom insist they would love to take care of Atlas. My dad, his girlfriend, her daughter, my aunt, my sister, a bunch of other randos who come and go and eat whatever I make.”
“Sounds divine,” she said, taking a sip of coffee. “And like the perfect solution.”
“But not permanent or fair. Everyone has lives except my grandmother and her best gal pal, but they’re seventy-eight and think all baby problems can be solved with a little whiskey. For Atlas.”
She nearly spit out her drink. “Sounds like…quite a household.”
“Oh, it is,” he assured her. “We’re all in a massive house on the beach that my dad built—he’s an architect—and Atlas and I basically have the whole ground floor. So, don’t judge, but I am literally living in my dad’s basement. I mean, if Florida had basements. This one has a pool and the Gulf of Mexico outside, so it doesn’t hurt to live there, but…”
“But it’s still living with Daddy when you’re thirty?”
He nodded. “And have a four-month-old kid.”
She leaned back, regarding him with a smile that somehow said none of that scared her, and that did more stupid things to his heart. Because she didn’t scare him, either.
Au contraire.
“You’ll figure it out.” She said it with a confidence that felt like a hand on his back, steadying. “People like you always figure it out.”
“People like me?” he scoffed. “You have no idea.”
She placed her elbows on the table and propped her absolutely adorable upside-down-heart chin on her knuckles. “I don’t,” she agreed. “But I’d like to.”
Oh, boy. That, ladies and gents, was an invitation if he’d ever heard one.
He looked back at her—this woman who somehow made a campus coffee shop feel like the most interesting place in the world—and felt the urge to RSVP right then and there.
Tomorrow? Dinner? Walk on the beach? Deep kisses and throaty laughter?Yes, please.
