“Yes, he does.”
Julie stepped up to the table with water and a coffee pot. She set them down, and I flipped over our cups.
“None for me,” Kat said. “I’ll be up all night.”
I closed my eyes and discreetly adjusted myself under the table. Thoughts about all the ways I could tire her out so she would sleep ran through my head.
“Do you know what you want?” Julie asked. “Or do you need a few more minutes?”
Kat glanced at the board over the counter and ordered the pot roast special, and I ordered the same. Julie disappeared, and Kat suddenly found her silverware intriguing.
“Then let’s be friends,” I said, catching her attention.
“What?”
“Let me be your friend. Frankie’s too.”
“Derek,” she groaned out my name, and though she meant it to show her frustration, my dick believed differently as it pulsed in my jeans.
Her voice alone was enough to make me hard, but the idea of her moaning my name as I thrust inside her was almost more than I could handle.
“What can it hurt to get to know me?” I asked, then cocked my head to the side. “Unless you’re afraid of falling for me?”
Kat snorted. “Not a chance.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about. Frankie likes me, and you trust her judgment, don’t you?”
Kat bit her lip as she thought about my question. When she still didn’t answer, I said, “Listen, all I’m asking is to be your friend. Let me get to know you and Frankie.”
“Why?”
That question had me stumped. The truth wasn’t an option. I couldn’t tell her I was Frankie’s biological father and that walking away from her was the biggest mistake of my life.
“She’s a great kid. She makes me think about what Charlie will be like when she’s older.”
“Speaking of Charlie. You said you and Jack didn’t grow up together. Why not?”
I let out the breath I was holding when she said Charlie’s name. She hadn’t noticed the similarities between my daughter and my niece. No one had. Not even Jack and Sam, though I wasn’t sure how. They could be sisters, and when they were both grown, I had a feeling people would mistake them for twins.
“My mom gave Jack up for adoption when he was born.”
“So he’s older than you?”
“No, I was six when he was born.”
Julie delivered our food, and Kat thanked her. When she moved away, Kat looked up at me, and I knew she wanted to hear more.
“I told you my dad was a drunk. He beat my mother and me. When I was six years old, she disappeared for a few days, and when she came home, her stomach was gone. She went from telling me I had a baby brother coming to never mentioning him again. Eventually, I forgot about him until the day she died.”
“I’m sorry, Derek. That must have been hard.”
I shrugged, uncomfortable with where this was going. If I didn’t change the subject, she’d want to know how I found Jack. And that was a story I wasn’t ready to tell. I wanted her to know me first. The man I had become, not the man I was when I made the second biggest mistake of my life.
“Where are you from originally?” I asked, hoping she’d forget what I told her.
“Washington,” she said without elaborating.
“And Frankie’s dad?” I asked.
