Page 59 of Playing It Forward

She narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t be a tattletale.”

“It’s your dad. He loves you. He’s trying to help. Be honest with him.”

“I hate it when you’re reasonable.”

“I like him,” Charlie declares. “I was prepared to hate him on your behalf. Despite his ability to drop a football into someone’s hands from half a field away. But anyone who supports one of my kiddos is okay in my books.”

I grin. Terri’s dad likes me. I bet I can get him on my side. To help me make Terri realize we’d be a good couple, a good family.

“I am okay.” She pauses. “Now.”

I decide to fill her dad in since getting Terri to admit her fears is more difficult than getting Tanner to shut up.

“She was worried, but the doctor reassured her yesterday.”

Charlie’s eyes narrow on me. “When you were at the hospital because you nailed her with a football.”

I feel my cheeks warm but I speak anyway. “It was an accident. I was showing off for some locals and overthrew.” I grasp Terri’s hand and meet her gaze. “It won’t happen again.”

She snorts. “Of course, it won’t. I don’t plan to be anywhere near you and a football ever again.”

I frown. My life is football. And she doesn’t want to be near me and a football again? Will she not support me at the Super Bowl? Will she not be in the stands cheering me on?

It’s the fear talking. I’ll convince her to change her mind.

I clear my throat. “Anyway, Dr. Allens said her mom having a miscarriage doesn’t automatically mean she’ll have complications. There’s no reason to assume the worst.”

Charlie stares at Terri. “Which is what I’ve been trying to tell her for years.”

She sighs. “I’m trying to be positive and believe it.”

I wrap my arm around her shoulders and kiss her forehead. “That’s all I ask for.”

“It sounds as if Nolan has things covered.”

“Dad,” Terri whines. “We’re not a couple.”

“Sure, you aren’t.” He winks.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Terri spits daggers out of her eyes at me. “Don’t make things worse.”

“How am I making things worse?”

“Is this how it’s going to be? You and Dad are going to gang up on me from now on? It’ll be high school all over again when Dad, Scott, and Ricky ganged up on me and Olivia. Except Olivia isn’t here.”

“We didn’t gang up on you.”

She lifts her eyebrow. “You didn’t ask Scott and Ricky to distract me while you nailed my bedroom window shut?”

Charlie shrugs. “You shouldn’t have been sneaking out.”

“Scott and Ricky snuck out all the time. You didn’t nail their windows shut.”

“Because they would have broken the glass and snuck out anyway.” He wags a finger at her. “And don’t think I don’t know about you sneaking out the front door while Olivia distracted me.”

“I did what I had to do,” she mutters.