Only One Kiss (Only One 1)

“Deal,” he says and then looks down at Ari. “Just one more thing,” he says. “I don’t play bongos nor will I have a harem around. It’s me and my girl,” he says, admiring his daughter. “Just the two of us.”Chapter 10RalphI look at my daughter, thinking of the words she just said to me. Or better yet, her demands. I listened to her and held my breath at the same time. When I opened my door before I told myself it’s just a girl, I already had her picture in my head, but it was nothing like seeing her. She had changed from her dress to a pair of black pants that molded her legs. A loose white T-shirt dips into a vee over her perfect tits. My cock started to rise, and I called him a traitor. It’s a good thing my shirt was a bit loose and fell over to cover it. Now sitting with her facing me on the couch, I had to tell her I wasn’t interested in her, just in case I sent the wrong message. Or was it the right message?

“Well, now that it’s settled you don’t have a harem.” She smirks and then opens one of the notebooks she has sitting on her lap. “Why don’t we start at the beginning?” she says, and it’s Ari’s turn to wake up and spit her pacifier out and squeal. “Well, then, princess, why don’t I add that to the list.” She looks at her and smiles, scrunching her nose. The way she is with Ari is honestly the hardest thing to watch. Seeing Ari smile at her and play with her just pushes the knife in my heart deeper, letting the blood slowly seep out. Candace reaches over and grabs a pen from her purse and then writes something in the book, and I suddenly want to sit beside her and see what she’s writing. “So, what and who does Ralph Weber stand for?”

“What does that mean?” I ask her while Ari pitches herself forward. I catch her and stand her on my legs, looking at Candace. “That is a loaded question.” I’m about to say something else when Ari squeals.

“What that means is pick five things that define Ralph,” she says and then gets up and comes over to me. Even better, she sits next to me, and for one second, I forget that guard I have up and smile over at her.

If this were a different situation, and we were in a different time, I would sit back and take her in my arms along with Ari. The minute I think it, though, a picture of Cassie flashes in my head. I try not to break Candace’s rule number one as she looks at me, waiting for it. Instead of saying anything, I get up and walk over to the corner where I keep all of Ari’s stuff and sit on the floor with her. I set her between my legs and bring the toys close to us as she reaches out to grab the first thing she can and brings it straight to her mouth.

“Okay.” She taps the pen on the book. “Let me ask you a couple of questions. What are your interests?”

“Hockey,” I answer right away without thinking twice.

“Okay, so hockey.” She writes it down. “Every account I run has a theme of five things so people know your branding. Like for Miller, it’s fitness, hockey, his dog, golf, and fishing.” I smile when she says that.

“Only Miller could do fitness and fishing at the same time,” I joke. “Okay, so I’m hockey, fitness, Ari…”

“Yeah, I got those already. I had an idea on my way here to help grow your audience,” she says. “I was actually looking through it after we got off the phone.”

“You went to check me out?” I joke with her, and she rolls her eyes, making me laugh. It actually feels good.

“I always check out potential clients,” she says, tapping her pen, and I can see she is a bit uncomfortable.

“But I’m not your client,” I say. She shrugs, and I see that her face turns a bit pink.

“How comfortable are you with having Ari on your Instagram?”

“Not at all,” I say right away. “I don’t want her out there.”

“But she’s who you are,” Candace tells me. “She is everything that you are. There is no Ralph without Ari,” she says. “I don’t know what happened.” She avoids eye contact with me. “But you’re a single dad.”

“You don’t know what happened?” I ask, shocked, and she shakes her head. “Cassie died giving birth to our child. Alone in a room without me. I stood there in the white hallway waiting for her to come back. They rushed her into surgery when her blood pressure fell.” I swallow, thinking back to the day. I haven’t been able or actually I haven’t wanted to tell anyone anything. But with her, I want to tell her, and I’m ignoring the reason. “Told me they were going to get her situated and then come back out and get me. So I stood there looking up at the fucking ceiling while she died on the table.” I say the words and see the pain on her face right away, and I don’t want it. I don’t want her to look at me with the same look everyone else gives me when I say the words out loud.