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He hesitated, and she rolled her eyes. “So I can text myself. That way, you’ll have my number, and I’ll have yours.”
Exactly, you’ll have mine.
There was no graceful way to decline, so he handed it to her just as Brianna and Nicole came down the stairs. The two friends exchanged a knowing smile.
He was right—this had been a trap.
Dammit.
Aiden loved his little girl for worrying about him and wanting to set him up with someone. She and Kailey both had been lamenting about him being alone while their mom had Bjorn. He’d tried reassuring them he was fine alone, but they obviously weren’t convinced. Still, he was going to have a serious talk with Brianna about ambushing him like this.
Lydia handed him back his phone, and he heard a faintdingcoming from somewhere in the other room.
“Ready, sweetheart?” he asked as he held his arm out to usher Brianna to the door.
“Yeah.”
But instead of moving to leave, the girls threw their arms around each other and hugged one another tightly, like one of them was going off to war instead of a house on a lake in Wisconsin for ten days. He saw a tear trickle down Bri’s cheek.
Even when he’d been a teenage boy, Aiden hadn’t understood teenage girl drama, but now, as a salty old man approaching forty-two, it was so out of his wheelhouse it wasn’t funny.
Nicole let out a small sob, and he glanced at Lydia to see if she had an opinion on the scene in front of them.
Her amused smile seemed to indicate she understood and was tolerant of it, but she agreed they were being over-the-top.
What was he supposed to do now? He got the feeling if he didn’t intervene, the two would stay latched to each other all night.
Fortunately, Lydia put her hand on Nicole’s shoulder and pulled them apart, saying, “All right you two. You’ll see each other in a few weeks, and I’m sure you’ll text each other all day, every day while Brianna is gone. It’s going to be fine.”
The woman was his hero. Maybe he would take her up on her offer.
But even as the thought entered his head, he recognized all the reasons he would not really be doing that, least of which was she reminded him too much of his ex-wife.
Aiden steered Brianna toward the door, pulling her in for a brief side hug around her shoulders before he opened the door and turned to Lydia and Nicole.
“It was nice meeting you, Lydia. Nicole, I’m sure I’ll see you soon. You ladies have a nice evening.”
“Thank you for having me over,” Brianna called to Lydia, then directed, “I’ll text you tonight,” toward her friend.
See? I don’t need to model being polite. My kid’s got it down.
Now he just needed to drop the hammer she never, ever try to play matchmaker again. The problem was, he knew she meant well, so he couldn’t come down too hard on her.
They were in his car and driving through traffic and he was looking for a way to broach the subject when she said, “Nicole’s mom is pretty great, don’t you think?”
“She seemed nice.”
“Do you think you’ll ask her out?”
He glanced at his thirteen-year-old in the passenger seat looking back at him with a hopeful smile.
“Not a chance, Bri Bug.”
“Why not?” she whined. “You’re single, she’s single. Why wouldn’t you ask her out?”
“Well, for starters, my standards when it comes to dating a woman are a little higher than ‘she’s single’. Secondly—”
Brianna cut him off. “Okay, well, she’s pretty and smart, and she’s always nice to me when I’m over there.”
