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“If you keep furrowing like that, you’ll get forehead wrinkles,” a voice said. I looked up to see my father standing in the doorway of my office. He tapped his forehead. “Trust me, I know.”
I shoved the paperwork into the drawer. “Don’t worry, I use wrinkle cream,” I joked, pushing out a smile to try to combat my anxiety. “What’s going on, Daddy?”
He grimaced and lowered his brows. “You tell me. What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing. Just work stuff. I’m good.”
“Liar.”
Liar.
I smiled more. “It’s fine. It will all work out.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to ask for help, baby girl. Sometimes, by asking for help, that’s the way it all works out. So if you need your papa to write a check—”
“Daddy,” I cut in. “I’m good. I promise.”
What a lying promise that had been. He knew it, too, but he didn’t push. I knew how hard my father worked for every cent he made. A hardworking construction man, he built his business from the ground up. My sisters and I tried to convince him to stop working so hard, but he’d always say, “What if my girls need something? I want to make sure I have it to give.”
You couldn’t talk a good man out of providing for his family, no matter what.
“What brings you in today?” I asked, gesturing to the basket he held in his hands.
“Ah, yes. A lunch date. Before the annual picnic auctions. I had my date with Avery yesterday, and today is yours. I need at least thirty minutes of your time so you can eat with the first man who loved you.”
My chest filled with love at how adorable my father was. Every year, he’d have picnics with each of us girls. It was a reminder of exactly what he’d said—one of the best loves we’d ever known.
I knew I was blessed to have a father who cared for me the way he did. Some people dreamed of such a thing—I lived it.
“Well, isn’t that exciting,” I replied. I made space on my desk, and he began pulling out the same items he packed in the basket each year. The same things Mama had made when Daddy brought her the basket on Hillstack many moons ago—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, barbecue chips, apple juice, and orange slices.
“I would have this meal with Willow, but did you know my baby girl was running around Chile with a strange man who went by the name Snake?” Dad asked as he sat down across from me.
I bit my bottom lip. “I plead the Fifth?”
He grumbled and shoved a handful of chips into his mouth. “It’s like you girls are trying to give your father a heart attack. You see this?” he said, pointing at his hair. “Every gray hair is from each of you girls. You have me looking like Black Santa out here.”
I laughed. “The gray looks good on you.”
“Well, you’re not wrong.” He opened the container of sandwiches, cut into stars like they were when we were kids, and handed me one. “What’s this I hear about you leaving Isla Iberia with that Alex Ramírez the other night?”
“News travels fast, huh?”
“It’s Honey Creek. Would you expect anything else?” He nodded my way. “Are you two involved?”
My stomach turned from the question. “We’re friends, I think.” Sort of. Kind of. Maybe. “It’s hard to explain. Kind of getting to know one another. He helped me out that night.”
“You like him, though,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “You know how I can tell? Your eyes sparkle when you talk about him.”
I huffed and waved him off. “No, that’s just the lighting fixture in here. I don’t like Alex. I mean, I don’t not like Alex. I mean—” Wait. Did I like Alex? What? No. Absolutely not. There was no way I liked him when I hated him forty-eight hours ago. If anything, we were acquaintances at best. Business neighbors. Nothing more, nothing less, except for the friendship we were trying to cultivate and—ohmygosh, why did my stomach feel like a swarm of butterflies filled it as I wondered if I liked Alex? What happened to the dragons?
Go away, butterflies! You do not belong here.
“It’s a complicated thing,” I choked out.
“A complicated thing?” he echoed. “You younger generations and your overthinking of stuff. You know, in my day, dating was much easier. You weren’t going person to person, dating fifty people at once, like you were a juggler. No. You set your eyes on one individual, stated proudly that you were seeing them, and you let the man court you. Do men not do that anymore? Court women?”
I snickered. “There’s a lot that men and women don’t do anymore when it comes to the world of dating.”
He grumbled and shook his head. “That’s unfortunate. Listen, I know change is good, and we should grow as a world. I’m not one of those old farts going on and on about how things used to be, but dating used to feel good. Now, it sounds like you all run high on anxiety, swiping right and left on your phones, not giving people a long enough shot because someone else always lurks around the corner. When dating, men and women bicker about what the other should and shouldn’t do. Then, there’re like fifty things before actual dating. What’s that thing called? I heard it on the radio the other day.” He snapped his fingers, trying to remember the word.
