They don’t, though, and that’s a problem.
CHAPTER 43
TATE
“Dad?”Bea asks me on the way home from school that day.
I turn the music down, a classic rock playlist Bea asked me to put on, and glance in the rearview mirror. “What’s up?”
We have a game tonight and I need to be back at the arena in an hour, but I pick her up from school when I can.
“Can I take guitar lessons?”
I give her a curious look. “You want to learn to play guitar? Since when?”
“Since Jordan played records for me. She said I was cool because I like good music.”
My heart squeezes. My prickly, anti-social employee told my kid she was cool. Come on. How am I not supposed to melt at that?
I’m definitely not supposed to be coming with her panties wrapped around my dick, though. Shame and guilt thread through me, and I fight back a sigh.
I can’t stop thinking about it.
This morning, another pair sat on the floor outside my bedroom door. It’s like that cat can sense when I’m trying not to think about the woman in my guesthouse.
Now I havetwopairs of her panties in my bedside table. Today. I’ll give her panties back today. Tonight. After the game.
Maybe tomorrow.
“I want to learn to play the songs,” Bea says, and I pull my focus back to her, where it belongs.
I love the idea of Bea learning an instrument. “Can you commit to three months of lessons? Even if it’s hard?”
She nods. “Even if it’s hard.”
“Alright.” I smile at her. “I’ll get you a guitar and sign you up for lessons.”
As I drive, Bea hums to the song, and my mind wanders to what Jordan told me last night about the UBC team.
They turned their backs on her. So did her father. No wonder she keeps everyone at a distance.
She hasn’t had anyone in her corner for a long, long time.
“Dad?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“Jordan’s really nice.”
There’s that squeeze in my chest again. “She is, isn’t she?”
“Maybe she’ll stay in the guesthouse forever.”
Ah. “She’s going to move out at the beginning of the summer, after the season’s over. Remember?”
Bea’s quiet for a moment, frowning out the window. “But maybe she can stay, anyways.”
It’s concerning, that I’m asking myself the same thing, and that’s exactly why we need this conversation. Because if I, a grown man, am getting ideas about the noncommittal woman who has a long history of being happily alone, what chance does my daughter have of not getting attached?
