While I eat, Cash tells me about the properties he and Ryland looked at today. There’s one they thought was promising, but Sebastian nixed it for some inexplicable Sebastian reason that’s mostly gut instinct, though he’ll never admit it.
Cash leaves as soon as I’m done eating, and I get back to work. As I’m loading up my truck around eleven, my phone dings.
At this hour, I expect a message from DogPerson, but it’s a text from Amelia. She thanks me for the cat gym I installed in Harper’s room and for ‘not making things weird.’
I’m not sure if she means with her or with her mother and Harper, but I take the compliment with a smile. This is progress.
I don’t text her back until I’m home, because I want to give our conversation my full attention. Just as I’m about to walk into my room, my phone rings with a call from her.
I turn on my heel and head back downstairs and out to the front porch so I don’t wake up Cash.
“Hey,” I say, putting my phone to my ear as I hurry down the stairs. “I was just about to text you back.”
“Oh,” she says, her voice breathy. “I thought you might be pissed at me. You’d have a right to be. I didn’t handle things very well.”
“I’m not pissed, Amelia. I completely understand why it’d be weird for you to have me meet your daughter like that.”
“Especially when you didn’t even know I have a daughter before today.”
Shit. Right. HandsyGuy knew about Harper, not me. “I didn’t text you back because I was driving home.” And because I don’t want her to think I was out on a date, I add, “from work.”
“Oh, no. You had to work late because of me and that cat gym you put in for Harper.”
“Which was my idea,” I say. “Seriously, no big deal.”
“You’re being way too nice. You’re too good for me.”
“Not by a mile, baby. How was your day?”
I stay out on that porch and we talk until she falls asleep. I stay up, sitting in the dark, too amped up to sleep.
For the first time, I fully believe I’ve got a real shot with Amelia.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Amelia
“I’ll raise,” I say, leaning across the table to drop my chips in the pot.
Ellery narrows her eyes. “Darn it. I fold.”
“Me too,” Millie says. She’s relaxed around us, but not enough to glare at me for my good hand, or supposed good hand. She gives me a cheery smile as she drops her cards onto the discard pile.
“You’re bluffing,” Lennox says, dropping in her chips.
“I agree.” Gentry smiles as she adds her chips. She hasn’t stopped smiling since she got here. I don’t know all the details, but it would seem that her recent family issues have finally resolved and I have a good feeling that she and Levi might have worked things out too. She won’t tell us. She says it’s too soon to talk about it.
I’ve been smiling a lot myself. Since that phone call with Deacon earlier in the week, we’ve been talking every night, and he’s meeting me at my place later since Harper is sleeping over at Mom and Dad’s.
Bryson’s picking her up in the morning to spend a couple of hours with her at the playground before I meet up with them.
“Let’s see your cards,” I say to Lennox and Gentry.
They lay them out, and I dance in my seat. I lay down my four of a kind and add the pot to my pile of chips. “I am having a good night.”
“That can change,” Ellery says as she grabs everyone’s cards and starts to shuffle.
My phone, which is on the table next to my hand in case my parents or Harper need something, dings. I flip it over, see the notification, and open the dating app. I’ve been messaging with HandsyGuy, but he’s been really busy this week.
