Single Dad Seeks Juliet

God. I’m practically the other woman!

“I’m not willing to ignore this,” he declares stubbornly, and my panic runs straight up the scale to an eleven.

“Why not?” I plead. “I’m giving you a pass, okay? You don’t have to get bogged down in the details of yet another woman. I’m fine to just move on. Put it behind us. Focus on the contest and figuring out which one of these women you’d like to pursue something with, okay?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do, Holley!” he blurts out on a rush. “If you would just listen to me—”

“No!” I finally shout, breaking my wrist free of his grip. “I can’t, okay? I can’t do this! Last night was a mistake, Jake. Just move on.” The nanosecond those words leave my lips, I have the urge to reach out into the air and shove them right back down my throat.

But it’s too late.

The damage has already been done, and goddamn, why does it feel like my chest is going to crack in half?

He stares at me so hard I feel like I might faint, but the moment is broken when a tentative voice calls out from our side. “Sorry, but am I in the right place?”

It’s Lucy, Jake’s date for tonight.

I barely hold back from crying at her timing.

Jake doesn’t turn his eyes away from me, though, and I’m left to wade into the breach. Swallowing hard, I make the right decision for both of us. Any other option…just isn’t an option.

It’s all too messy.

Turning to Lucy, I throw on a bright smile. It’s fake, yes, but at least it’s something. Jake still looks like he ate bad seafood for lunch. “Yes!” I say so chirpily I sound like a fucking bird. “You are! Sorry about the confusion, it’s just been a little stressful.”

She smiles tentatively then, holding out a hand to Jake for him to take.

He stares at me for a long moment, a million things playing across his face before he finally, apparently, lands on something in mine.

When he opens his eyes from a blink, the contact is gone, and so is everything I’m used to feeling between us. His energy, as it were, has completely shifted to Lucy.

It’s what I wanted—desperately needed, even. I just don’t know why it feels so shitty.

I literally just told him to focus on Lucy, and that’s what he’s doing. For the first time on record, a man has actually listened, and yet, it doesn’t entirely feel like a victory.

Am I crazy? Because I feel crazy.

I shake myself out of my stupor as Jake and Lucy find their way to their lane and pick out bowling balls that will be the appropriate weight. Lucy seems attentive enough, listening to what Jake says and laughing. He smiles then, a real smile I’ve grown to know so well. Normally, he puts on a little bit of a fake grin to make the women feel better, but I haven’t seen him open up the gates.

Not, that is, until now.

Now, he’s smiling at her like he usually smiles at me.

Are you sure you’re not just being a self-deprecating, self-destructive psycho who is making herself see things that aren’t really there?

I mentally flip my stupid subconscious the bird. The nosy bitch needs to mind her own business. Yes, I know she’s technically me, but I’m nearly in the middle of a nervous breakdown over here!

No matter what’s really going down in front of me, I feel like it’s all my fault. Only I’m to blame for my petty, childish outburst or the sad reality that I left my townhouse before he woke this morning. Who does that? Seriously? Me. I do that.

Jake wanted to talk to me, to talk about everything that we should be talking about, and I shut him down.

As I watch Lucy step up to bowl, and then look back to see Jake watching her, I have to wonder if I’ll look back on shutting him out as the biggest mistake of my life.

I take my spot at the table behind them and do my best not to cry.

It’s pathetic, really, feeling sorry for myself. I want him to be happy, and Lucy seems like a nice, normal woman. She could be that for him. He could be the one for her.

I take out my notebook and scribble down some notes about the animated way they chat with each other and the fact that neither of them ever seems eager to get up and take their turn to bowl. It’s a regular romantic fucking comedy movie playing out before my very eyes.

She takes a sip of her soda and then spews it on him when he makes her laugh mid-drink. It’s ridiculous and awkward, but also really, really cute. He takes the cup from her hands and grabs a stack of napkins from the table, presumably to help her clean up the mess while they laugh together, and that’s just about all I can take.