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It was obvious Erin would be moving into my room with me, which hadn’t made Rob very happy, but to his credit, he was clearly doing his best to accept what was going on in his daughter’s life.
He said very little when Erin came home after her surgeries as he watched us moving her things into my room and Krissy spreading out more in the room where Erin had been staying.
Rob didn’t help with moving his daughter into my room with me, but he didn’t do anything to stop it, either.
“We’ll take that as a win,” Erin told me quietly when she had the chance.
“Just give it time. He’ll come around. I know it might not be the most comfortable situation right now, but I know your dad. He’s not going to let this stay an issue between him and me. I’m sure of it.”
“I hope not,” Erin told me. “I would hate to think that you and I being together would be what drove you and him apart. I know how much you mean to him.”
“Just not as much as you,” I told her. “And right now, I’m sure he’s worried about you and what’s going to happen. Just give him time to come around with things. Now that we are out in the open about our relationship, there’s no need for either of us to rub it in his face. Just live like we do and let it unfold.”
Rob stayed for two more weeks after the accident, helping out where he could and doing little things around the house. He was incredibly attentive to Erin herself, and I had to admit, he stepped it up as a father to make sure he was there for her in any way he could be during the early stages of her recovery.
There was still residual tension between him and me, but I figured that was to be expected considering I was his best friend who had overstepped by sleeping with his daughter. His daughter, well, she was the one he loved unconditionally, and her sleeping with me wasn’t as big of an offense in his mind as it was for me to do the same thing.
I couldn’t be angry with him for having double standards on that, as I knew it was going to be tough for anyone to start dating Libby once she was old enough, let alone someone who was my best friend. I was willing to be the one to take the brunt of the judgment and anger from Rob, just as long as Erin was happy.
“Call me when you get back home,” Erin told him the day he was leaving. “I want to know you made it safe.”
“I will,” he said. “And I want you to keep me updated on how you’re feeling and what you’re up to. I want to know once you’re back to normal.”
“I’ll text you,” she promised him. “I’ll keep you well informed about how things are going for me here.”
He gave his daughter a kiss, then to my surprise, he actually shook my hand when I offered mine to him.
“Take care of her,” he said. “I mean it. Erin means more to me than life itself, and I’m leaving her here in your charge. I want to know without a doubt I’m making the right decision here.”
“You are,” I assured him. “I love her more than life itself, too, and you better believe I’m going to bend over backwards to make sure she is the happiest a woman can be.”
“I’m not ready to talk about that yet, I just need to know at this point that she is in good hands as she recovers. I trust I can go home and not have to give another worry to how things are going here.”
“Absolutely,” I assured him. “She is in good hands.”
“Just go,” Erin laughed. “I’m not made of glass; I’m not going to break. If you don’t get out of here now, you’re going to miss your flight.”
Rob nodded, then said goodbye to Libby. I was loaning the Jeep to Krissy so she could take Rob back to the airport, then she would come back here after. I knew it was the right choice to have her here to help us out, and considering the circumstances, it felt best to have her be the one to take Rob to the airport with the tension that existed between the two of us at the moment.
The two of them left, and Libby was ready to go to her room.
“If you don’t need any help from me right now, I’ll go,” she said.
“Not right now,” Erin told her. “I think I’m going to take a nap before dinner, so it’s going to be pretty quiet on this end of the house.”
“I’m going to read,” she said as she disappeared toward her bedroom.
Libby had finally believed us that the accident was not her fault. She seemed to be ok now and just wanted to be as much help as she could be to Erin.
“I’m glad Krissy is here to help out,” Erin told me once Libby had disappeared. “I don’t know what we’d do if you suddenly had to deal with her schedule on top of taking care of me and trying to get your book launched. Might as well see how many things we can pile onto you at once to figure out where the line is, right?”
“I’d just put my book on hold,” I told her with a shrug. “I wanted you to come down here to help me get it finished so I could get my schedule back to normal, but it was a want. If it came down to the point where I had to choose whether I was taking care of you or Libby or writing the book, I would just have to put my writing on the back burner.”
“That wouldn’t make your publisher happy,” she said with a shake of her head. “I can just imagine what he’d have to say about that after dealing with his meltdown over the editor situation.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “I really am grateful to Krissy for doing this for us. It goes beyond what she’s just doing for you and Libby. Thanks to her I’m able to keep with the dates that we had listed originally, so I’m not going to have to deal with changing the launch or anything.”
“Do you really think Dad’s going to come around?” Erin asked suddenly. “I mean, he gave me a kiss and everything before he left, but I don’t know. I can tell when there is something wrong, and there most certainly is right now. I don’t know what to do about it. It’s not like I’m going to change what I’m doing to make him happy, but I hate to have him pissed at us.”
