“You promised you’d try,” she reminded me gently, her voice softer. Probably so her aunt wouldn’t hear our conversation and get into our business.
The one and only flimsy excuse I had that I’d thought would be my saving grace when it came to this speed dating thing was Cassie being the cheer captain. They had a competition a couple of towns over in the opposite direction of Moonlit Pines she couldn’t miss. Pinehaven was a nice small touristy town with tons of hotels and big enough venues to hold a cheer competition of that size. Her mom, stepdad, and two half-sisters were traveling this month, and I was the one who would have to take her.
In walked Courtney to the rescue so I could still attend this thing.
If it was this crowded at a brewery that was more than a few thousand square feet—seriously, the place looked like a literal factory on the outside—I could only imagine how packed with bodied the speed dating event would be. Or worse, the bachelor and picnic basket auctions.
“Dad? You there?” Cassie called out.
“Who all has arrived?” I asked in an attempt to change the subject. Part of me wanted to stay in my hotel room. Maybe go fish at the lake instead of trying to find someone to date. God, when did dating become this complicated? Nowadays, everyone met on apps. Whether it was swiping up, down, left, right, it was all the same idea. My head started to hurt. I was too old for that shit.
“Oh, you know… the usuals.” There was something to my kid’s voice that made me still.
She was up to something.
“The girls on the team. Oh! Jane and Heather are in the rooms right next to mine and Aunt Court’s. All the coaches. Umm, some of the football guys,“ she said quickly. “And you remember that hair and makeup—“ My daughter actually thought she could distract me from the bombshell she’d dropped on me? Did she think I was born yesterday?
“What?” I asked.
“The hair and make?—“
“No, you said football guys. Which football guys?” I asked as calmly as I could manage. I had a feeling I knew just which football guy had headed to Pinehaven to support the cheer squad. Probably the same one who had been showing up to dinner and hanging out with her at the library for tutoring.
“Dad,” she groaned, and my eyes shut.
Fuck. I’d been set up by my kid.
And I would bet the deed to my house it was all my sister’s idea.
“What football player, Cassandra Anne Walker?”
“Dad—“
“Cass?”
“It’s Mace.” Mace. The tall quarterback who had allegedly been getting tutored by my daughter, only for me to find out the kid was in the running as class valedictorian.
Mace, the teenage man boy who was as tall as me and probably weighed as much as I did, who was all cut up with muscles only an eighteen-year-old kid could have.
“You know the rules, Cass,” I muttered.
“Dad—“ That headache that had slowly started to tick away at my temple picked up speed.Cassie knows the rules.
“We have one rule. You’re allowed to date when you graduate,” I repeated for the umpteenth time.
“Dad—“
“No exceptions.”
“Mom doesn’t agree with?—“
“I don’t care. Mom might want you to throw away your future but—“ I immediately regretted my words. Carol loved Cass more than life itself.
“You’re impossible,” she whispered in a tone I’d never heard from her before. “Just because you’re all alone and too stubborn and scared to try to meet someone new, that doesn’t mean everyone around you needs to be, too.” It felt like a knife had been lodged in my back. “If you gave Mace just three minutes of your time, without you glaring or spouting off rules that make no sense, you would see that.”
“Cassie, this isn’t up for discussion.” I hated how much I sounded like my own hardheaded father.
“Shocking,” she clipped. Lines formed between my eyes. “Nothing is ever up for discussion.”
