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Pulling into my driveway, my mouth practically hits my knees. What in the world have my kids been up to?
Chapter14
Ethan
“You’re sure you want to get a pedicure here?” I murmur to Lily, who’s holding my hand as we stand in the doorway of the Rinse ‘n Repeat. This place isn’t exactly giving off spa vibes. There’s a country song blasting out of the speakers about a man lamenting his fate of “looking at the world through a windshield.” The walls are prison gray and instead of massage chairs, they appear to be using folding chairs.
Lily tilts her head to the side and looks at me from under her blonde eyelashes. With a smile, she says, “We can’t neglect our feet during flip-flop season.”
I stare at the three metal chairs and nod. “Pedis it is.” The woman behind the counter grins at me like Lily and I are the cutest thing she’s ever seen. She leads us over to the chairs before pouring water into the basins. “I’m Rhonda. It’ll take me a minute to get your foot baths filled. Why don’t you pick out your colors?”
Lily tugs at my arm and leads me to a wall of nail polish bottles in every color under the sun. “I think I’ll get blue.”
“Blue is my favorite,” I tell her.
Her eyes light up. “You should do the same one.”
“I was thinking I’d skip the polish.”
Her eyes roll up. “Men.”
“Exactly,” I tell her. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.”
We’re soon sipping bottled water and letting our feet soak in massage baths. Not what I’d call luxurious, but not a total miss. After all, I’m with one of my favorite people in the world.
Said companion sighs as soon as Rhonda plugs her foot bath in, and it starts to vibrate. “Mom thinks you have a crush on Moira. True or false?”
My cheeks heat up. “False.”
Leveling me with a surprisingly condescending glare for a five-year-old, Lily continues, “Really? Because it seems like you really like her.”
“Moira is a beautiful woman and I really like spending time with her. But I am not looking for a girlfriend right now, and she’s not looking for anyone either. So, we’re going to be friends.”
“You’re not getting any younger, you know,” Lily says, taking a sip of her water.
Ouch. “That’s not very nice,” I tell her.
Cocking one eyebrow, she says, “Someone’s got to tell you the truth, Uncle Ethan. And I’m not going to lie to you. Mommy says lying is for dogs.”
“Right, well, thanks, but I’ve almost been married once, and I don’t think it’s for me.”
“You can’t let Paige ruin the rest of your life. There are plenty of nice women in the world who would love to marry you.” I’m pretty sure she’s overheard Harper say these exact words. Prisha too.
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve been there, almost done that, didn’t like how it turned out.”
“That’s just silly, Uncle Ethan. If I had given up on swimming the first time I got scared, I’d be missing out on a lot of fun.”
Fidgeting in my chair, I suddenly realize how powerful little kids can be at making you take a good hard look at your choices. Unfortunately, Paige wasn’t just a simple fear of the deep end that I could get over as soon as I jumped in.
I was so damn sure she wasthe one, that I went out and bought the biggest ring I could find. I booked the Hollywood Bowl and had The Ivy pack us the fanciest picnic you’ve ever seen. While we sat on the stage to eat, a string quartet serenaded us. Afterwards, I dropped to one knee to declare my love only to get kicked in the gut in return. It seems that while Paige was making a good show of loving me as much as I loved her, she was only biding her time until someone better came along. Someone better turned out to be a music producer that she was engaged to only a month later.
Needing to distract myself from the memory, I decide to change the subject. “While you’re giving out free advice, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about writing a book, would you?”
“What’s the book about?” she asks.
“It’s a thriller. Do you know what that means?” I ask, forgetting that her father has starred in a dozen of them.
“Ah, yeah,” she says, pulling out the sarcastic tone more often heard from fourteen-year-olds. “It means it’s scary, but not all bloody and stuff.”
