Color Me Pretty: A Father's Best Friend Romance

d blew out an irritated breath. Who the fuck did she think she was? She was no more than a sad middle-aged housewife who threw away any future picked out for her by someone else. I’d raise hell if anybody pushed that on Della. She deserved more. Anthony knew it. Elizabeth knew it. Everyone but Sophie, who did whatever she pleased despite her brother’s wishes.

I dropped back into my chair. “I need a fucking smoke.”

I was staring at the desk when I heard, “I thought you were going to quit.” Without even looking up I knew who the feather-light voice belonged to.

“Shouldn’t you be at school?” As soon as I looked up, I took in her outfit and fought back a smile. Her white shorts were a little too short on her long legs, but they didn’t cling to her smooth skin. They were high-waisted like she preferred wearing and loose, with a striped shirt tucked into them and an oversized white blazer over top, left unbuttoned. She always dressed to impress, which made her parents happy. I knew when she wasn’t out, she was in paint-stained overalls, pajamas with ridiculous fucking pictures on them, or workout pants with knee-high socks featuring obnoxious patterns.

Della was always eccentric in her style preferences when she had nobody to dazzle, and that was what impressed me most about her.

She walked in, the heels of her shoes clicking against the floor as she stopped in front of my desk. “It’s almost five thirty. I don’t have anywhere to be since…”

Since she stopped dancing. I knew that. It wasn’t like she’d stopped recently—it’d been years. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t hard to see her lingering when she was normally elsewhere doing something that she loved a long time ago.

Her throat cleared. “I was going to head back to my place and work on some projects a little, but I figured you’d still be here.”

While my building was on her way home from campus, it didn’t make sense why she’d come. “Something I can do for you?”

Her lips twitched, tilting downward like the question hurt her. I wasn’t trying to play coy, or even play it off, but I was no stranger to the way her eyes lingered on me. It was the same way mine did on her, I was just better at hiding it. “I was checking in, I guess. I…” I wanted to kick myself knowing she was hesitating because I made her feel unwelcome. She brushed it off. “Can I make you dinner?”

I blinked. “Come again?”

She stood tall, nodding once. Her hair was pulled back in some kind of twisted updo, but a thick strand fell loose and caressed her cheek. The same one that was tinted pink at her own words as she waited for my response. “I want to make you dinner. I have something in mind that I think you’d like. You can’t go wrong with a homecooked meal, right?”

The chair creaked under my weight as I leaned back with my hands folded on my stomach. “Depends what it is.” That was a lie. I’d be happy with anything that I didn’t have to take out of a container, especially if she were the one cooking it.

It wouldn’t be the first time she made me food. There were times in the past I let her experiment on me with meals she wanted to create that her father wouldn’t eat. He’d either be too busy or too tired by the time he’d gotten home. There were days when she’d admitted that she hadn’t even bothered making more than necessary because it just went to waste.

“Chicken alfredo with garlic bread.”

My stomach reacted instantly, but it wasn’t loud enough for her to know I was all in. Instead, I studied her for a moment until she shifted in uncertainty before giving her a light smile. “I need to lock up since Abigail left. Did you take a cab here?”

“Uber.”

“What did I tell you about those?”

Her blue eyes rolled, lined with thick black lashes, and a brightness in them that always made her look happy even when she wasn’t. “Like taxis are any better? Plus, they’re practically the same thing.”

I couldn’t argue with her, but that didn’t stop my deadpanned expression from crossing my features. “You have a driver.”

“That I hate using,” she replied instantly.

“You like Dallas.”

“Yes, I do like Dallas.” Her agreement was light, making my lips waver upward over her gentleness. She liked everybody, that was the problem. “But that doesn’t mean I like using his services when I’m capable of getting myself places other ways. Not to mention, Dallas’s wife just had a baby and it wouldn’t be fair for me to call him away while he enjoys Cody.”

“Cody?”

“The baby.”

“Ah.” I flattened my palm against my dress shirt, today’s choice charcoal gray that hid a stain I’d accidently gotten on it during lunch, before grabbing my jacket from where it hung by the door. “I still don’t want you using Uber.”

“You’re being silly.”

“I’m being practical.” I wasn’t and we both knew it, but I liked our banter. “You could call me if necessary.”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

And surprise you did, little Della. But capturing the sight of her bare thighs and the way they were shaped from years of dance, even after her extensive weight loss, made me realize just how much I needed to stop calling her that. I rarely did it aloud anymore because it felt inappropriate, like an insult somehow. Adele was no longer the little girl who begged to dance while standing on my shoes, but a grown woman capable of pulling any man to the floor and demanding they dance with her. That didn’t stop me from dancing with her over the weekend, relishing in an old memory that calmed us both down, when I found her moving by herself. I wanted to give her peace of mind, something to hold onto that would never change. We’d always have the past.