“Yeah.” I had, but what Rob said about his Daddy was still bugging me. “Was Daddy Preston at your meeting?”
“No. He hasn’t been going to many. Probably because he’s spending time with Rob.”
“I don’t think so…”
“Oh? Did Rob say something?”
“Sort of.” I glanced out the window, thinking about how much I should share. “I think they’re having problems. That makes me sad ‘cause Rob deserves to be happy.”
“Of course he does. Well, I’ll give Preston a call and see what’s up with that.”
“Will you?”
“Yes. of course.”
“Just don’t tell him Rob said anything. I don’t want to upset my friend.”
“Nope. I’ll just say I haven’t seen him at the meetings. That should be enough to open the door to a conversation.”
“You’re the best Daddy ever.” Not that I would actually know that. I’d never had a Daddy before now, but Daddy Nate had turned out to be everything I would ever have wanted in one, and I loved him so much. I hoped that we would stay together forever. Things had been going so great since we’d gotten together. Not only did I have the best Daddy for me, but I now owned my own company, and I’d made so many changes that were already making us more money. I even had a brand-new, well, new-to-me, warehouse space for it, so we didn’t have to bug Uncle Clay. I felt successful and special, both things I never knew I could feel. “You know, we’re together and so happy, and that’s all because of Rob and Preston introducing us. I’d be super happy if we could return that favor. You know?”
“Don’t get upset if it doesn’t work out the way you want, though.”
“No, but we have to try.”
“Then we will.”
26
NATE
What Gilly had said about Preston and Rob being responsible for setting us up was dead-on. Much like Gilly, that fact encouraged me to help the couple. When we arrived home, Gilly went to play in his room, while I went into my office and pulled out my phone.
On the third ring, Preston answered. “Hey, Nate. What’s going on?”
“Preston, thanks for picking up. I wanted to check in on you since you weren’t at the meeting, and I haven’t seen you in a while.” That alone was strange, since previously, he went to more meetings than I did.
“Oh, yeah. Well, um, I had to work. It’s been busy.”
I played with a pen sitting on my desk, worrying that he wasn’t being totally honest. “That’s a shame. Maybe we can get together for dinner this weekend? I know Gilly would love seeing Rob.”
“Um, I don’t know if I can.”
I needed to get him to open up. Something was wrong. “Hey, Preston, you know you can talk to me, right? About anything.”
He sighed so loudly it came through the phone. “Damn.”
“What’s going on?”
For a minute, I didn’t think he was going to answer. “It’s, well, shit, it’s Rob.”
“Did you break up?” I knew they hadn’t, at least not officially from what Gilly had said.
“No, but…”
“You’re going to? Why?” I leaned back in my chair, prepared to listen.
“I don’t want to stop seeing him, which is the main part of the problem. I really like him, a lot. But I feel like he needs more than I can give him.”
