CHAPTER TWO
Waylon
After all this time, I have found my little girl. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’ll find out very soon.
For the first time in more than seven years, I’m ready to be a little girl’s Daddy again. My last little girl left me beaten and abandoned, figuratively, not literally. I thought we were working toward a life together, but it turned out she was just having fun. When I tried to talk to her about things being more than just fun, she ended the relationship.
I discovered she had a boyfriend the whole time, a vanilla boyfriend. He and I met by accident at the hardware store and struck up a conversation because he was buying items to build an extra room on his house for a nursery, and I am in the construction business. He told me his girlfriend of the last five years was pregnant, and he was going to ask her to marry him and show her the nursery at the same time.
I was happy to give him advice, and then Tina showed up. He hugged and kissed her while she looked at me in horror. He introduced her as his girlfriend. “Five years. That’s amazing,” I said.
She and I had been together for three years. We’d broken up for five days. I wanted to confront her about it, but I didn’t. Whether or not she called me Daddy, I was fully committed to her.
It’s been seven years, but I am still deeply hurt by how things ended with Tina.
She sees me in town once in a while and thanks me for letting her off the hook. Her marriage is solid with two children now. I act gracious and smile, but I hurt so badly I can barely stand straight. For seven years, I have carried that hurt with me, and it’s a hurt that consumes me most of the time.
But maybe not anymore. For the first time in years, thoughts of Tina don’t bring the same pain as they have in the past.
Now, my mind is filled with thoughts of Lena.
I didn’t have much time to talk to Carl about Lena, but it seems she was in a similar situation. She had a Daddy who wasn’t what he should have been, who left her after betraying her as well. Tina hurt me, but I feel like a little girl betraying her Daddy isn’t nearly as bad as a Daddy betraying his little girl. Of course, I have no details about that.
But I have the image of Lena burned into my head in the most profound and beautiful way. As far as I’m concerned, that image will burn in my brain for a very long time, which is the way I like it. Her face and body are perfect, but most of all, she has the wide-eyed innocent look to her eyes I find striking and beautiful.
“What the hell are you doing?” Carl asks me. I sit at the bar in his club drinking a Bloody Mary. Moments ago, I was talking with Carl, Michael, and Leo. I have no idea what we’re all talking about, and Carl calls me out on it. I try my best to recall something, anything about the conversation. I have no luck at all.
“He’s obsessing over Lena,” Leo replied.
I glance at him with my best attempt of a nasty glare, but he’s right, so it ends up more of an exasperated, embarrassed smile. I try to recover a little by saying, “I think obsessing is too strong a term.”
“Okay, sure,” Leo says. “I completely believe you.” He nods. “Yep. Nothing at all happening there. No obsession at all. None. Zero. Zilch.”
“Jesus,” I say. “You’re too much.”
“When are you going to take her out?”
“I don’t even have her number.”
“She lives next door to Josie and Michael.”
“Oh yeah?” I say noncommittally.
Carl says, “Jesus, Waylon. Get your ass up off that stool and go talk to her.”
“What are you guys, my relationship counselors?”
Michael laughs and says, “You have to start the relationship for us to give you any counsel about it.”
“And when exactly will you be starting it?” Carl asked.
“Want to follow me to her place, so you don’t get lost?” Leo asks. “I promise to drive nice and slow and put my signals on early enough for you to see what’s going on.”
“My God, you guys!” I say as I shake my head and sip my drink. “I’ve been in town for what, a day? Are you trying to rescue me from loneliness or something?” The Bloody Mary is good, not too much alcohol, and put together very well. “When did you all get credentials in matchmaking?”
“Gee, Waylon,” Michael says in a fake-wondrous voice that sounds like a kid in a 1950s television show. “What do you think Lena’s doing right now?”
Carl chuckles and says, “What do you want to bet a bunch of little girls are conspiring to do this same thing with Lena?” I smile as I remember all of them giggling and laughing at Carl’s house. There’s something special about a group of little girls together like that. When a group of them are together, a great deal of the stress of day-to-day life seems to flow away from them until they’re just enjoying being who they are.