He picks at his lower lip and sniffs noisily. “I would like that. A lot.”
“There’s one last thing I need to clear with you before we go get dessert. And if it wasn’t super important, I would never ask you to keep a secret from your mom, not for anything, but I would like to ask her to marry me. I want to make sure that it’s okay with you first though.” I hold my breath because, honestly, I’m going to ask her; it’ll just be that much easier if Jake is on board.
A smile lights up his face, and he asks, “Really?”
I match his smile and nod.
Jake thrusts his hand toward me to shake and says, “Welcome to the family.”
I shake his hand, ignoring his clamminess from wiping away snot, proud of the way he’s handled something a kid should never have to hear about.
“So,is there something special you two do for Father’s Day?” I ask.
With a quick, shrill whistle, Bronson trots across the yard and into the house, splaying out on the AC vent in the corner of the kitchen.
“What do you mean?” Chloe lifts the dishwasher door with her heel and bumps it shut. “I thought you were cool with going to my parents’.”
“I am. Just… Do you do something special to honor Dallas?” I’ve worked hard over the past couple of weeks, proving myself to Jake, building trust, and earning his respect again. “I don’t want to be in the way, so I can just cut out for a bit, let you guys do your thing, and then swing back when you’re ready to go.”
Chloe folds the dish towel, neatly tucking it in the laundry room. She stands with a hip resting against the counter, arms folded across her chest, pushing her boobs together. “Before we moved, we’d go visit Dallas’s grave, and then, we’d just hang out for the rest of the day. Nothing we can really replicate here.” Sadness flashes in her eyes before she covers it with a smile. “What about you? I should have asked before now, but is there something special you do?”
We still tiptoe around discussions of Aly and my daughter—mostly Aly. Chloe is hugely supportive of me when I talk about them, but it’s never an easy discussion. For any of us.
“I’ll talk to my dad at some point, but I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”
She seems to think about that, her brows pulling together, but the subject dies right there for the night.
In the morning,after a quick detour for doughnuts and coffee and a chocolate milk, we make the drive out into the country. Chloe’s parents live in a big house on a good-sized chunk of land.
“Uncle Brent and Uncle Drew are going to be there, right?” Jake asks from the backseat.
“Yep.” Chloe smirks at me from the passenger seat.
While her parents seem to like me just fine, she’s hinted at the fact that her older brothers can be kind of brutal.
“And Uncle Jack won’t, right? Did we send him a card?”
“We?” Chloe glances in the backseat and laughs at Jake’s shocked expression. “Yes,wesent Jack a card and Grandpa Triplett, too. I covered all your bases for you.”
“Almost all of them,” Jake mumbles under his breath, leaning forward and most likely thinking only Chloe can hear him.
The rest of the drive is quiet, uneventful, but with aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents, chaos fills our day.
Over grilled burgers and more salads and desserts than a group our size needs, gifts are handed out.
Chloe’s big, bad brothers might think they’re tough. But when Brent puts on the pink construction-paper tie with unicorn stickers decorating it, his street cred dies a painful death.
“Don’t you look pretty?” Drew drawls, winking at his brother.
Brent smooths down his paper tie, nodding at the play makeup set Drew just unwrapped. “Prettier than you’ll be, even after your makeover.”
A tiny version of Drew’s wife climbs up onto his lap, digging into the makeup crap and swiping pink and blue powder across his face. It hits me that she’s about the age my daughter would be. I allow myself just a moment to imagine her playing dress-up with me, and I smile.
“Don’t laugh, man. She’s been eyeing your beard since you got here, and I’ve got some bows in my princess kit here,” Drew razzes me.
“That’s a hard pass,” I say.
Jake leans over to Chloe and whispers, his hand cupped around his mouth. She nods, and he bounces from his seat and trots over to the tote bag she tucked under the small table by the door. He hands Chloe’s dad a card and then hands me a royal-blue gift bag, bright red tissue sticking out the top.
