Single Dad Seeks Juliet

She shakes her head. “Holley made me a promise, and I know she’ll keep it.”

“Chlo—”

“No, Dad! You’re perfect for each other, and she’s perfect for us. I know it. So, you just be ready for the party Friday, okay? And I’ll make the plays I need to get her there.”

Hope wars inside me for the first time since my confrontation with Holley in the bowling alley Sunday. I know nothing is guaranteed but getting myself in a room with Holley seems like the first step to all of this. I know we’re right for each other—I just have to make her see it too.

“Do you really think it’ll be that easy?”

“Bet, Daddio. Team Brent is the ultimate. No cap.”

I sigh, my head falling back as Chloe laughs. I don’t even have to ask her before she clarifies. “It just means it’s the truth. Team Brent will defeat any opponent, anytime.”

I’m not sure I should put so much stock into what a teenage girl has to say, but here I am, ready to lay it all on the line in the name of love.

God, I sure hope she’s right.HolleyNormally, my Friday mornings are reserved for positive thoughts about the upcoming weekend. They might even include a donut splurge from Dunkin’ on my way in to work.

But most Friday mornings don’t occur on the very same day where you’re supposed to attend a big reveal party and watch the man you can’t stop thinking about pick the woman he wants to pursue. Wants to fall in love with.

Needless to say, this Friday morning proved to be tragic.

I woke up in a fucking pitch-black mood, and that mood turned full-on doomsday when I checked my email to find several responses from readers who are simply so excited to find out who Bachelor Anonymous picks tonight!

Readers who have been excitedly following along with my articles on BA.

Readers who have read about Bianca and Rachel and Lydia and Elle and Lucy—otherwise known as Date Number Five when everything went up into a flaming dumpster fire. Also, by far the hardest article I had to write for this fucking assignment.

At least, emotionally. From a journalistic perspective, it was almost like I planned it—the last date in the list going so well. It was a perfect build in tempo, really, from the first lackluster date with Bianca to a final romp full of chemistry with Lucy.

Gloria was ecstatic when I turned it in on Tuesday morning, and the readers ate it up like McDonald’s hotcakes when it published on Wednesday.

After finishing it, however, I am a mere shell of the woman I once was.

Truthfully, I don’t even know how I managed to write anything about Jake’s date number five that didn’t give the vibe of a lonely single woman crying onto her keyboard. It was obviously the sheer strength of my experience with compartmentalized deadline-crunching that got me through.

But I found out this morning that you can only compartmentalize your emotions for so long until you literally snap and wake up in the worn leather seats of an American-made relic.

See, apparently, when you text your dad an emotional shitstorm of mental breakdown texts while he’s out in the middle of nowhere fishing, he takes it seriously.

At least, my dad did. I was two pints of ice cream deep, in a comforter-robe with My Best Friend’s Wedding playing on the TV last night when he rang the doorbell, threw a bag over my head—no fucking kidding—kidnap-tossed me into the back seat of his Buick, and drove back out into the wilderness, hysterical daughter in tow.

If it hadn’t been for the sound of his voice telling me to shush up and rest as I freaked out in the back seat, I might have really thought I was being freaking kidnapped.

Phil Fields is, evidently, a fucking lunatic.

By the time we made it here last night, I was passed out in the back seat. And that’s where I woke up this morning. My dad didn’t even try to move me.

“Dad—”

“Come on, kiddo.” He gestures to the water with a lift of his chin. “Cast it out there.”

“Dad, I really didn’t come to fish—”

“Put your line in the water, girl. That’s the rule of being in the boat.”

I sigh and flick the rod to cast my line out into the water. Truth be told, I don’t even think I put any bait on my hook. It doesn’t matter. Just by having the line in the water, my dad is apparently satisfied.

“Okay,” he says. “Now, talk.”

“I’ve made a mess, and I think you might be a bit of a lunatic.”

“No shit, darlin’. I already knew I had a few screws loose. And I kind of got the whole mess thing from the fifteen-minute phone call filled with snot and tears and God knows what else. But the answer is simple, Holl. You make a mess, you clean it up.”