It’s only noon on Tuesday, and already, I’m fucking done. I’m done with the day, done with the week, just about done with the year, for that matter.
Matt was so unimpressed with my mood, he made me walk off my own job.
“Fucking ridiculous,” I say to myself, reliving it again. Nothing was going right, and the quality of work was shitty at best. I have a right to voice my displeasure to whomever I goddamn please until they get it right.
Yeah. But is that really what has you so angry? my mind taunts annoyingly, and I slam back another slug of beer to shut it up.
I grab my phone furiously and type out a message.Me: You around to get a beer? Need to talk.Garrett answers almost immediately, but it is the absolute last thing I want to hear.Garrett: Sorry, dude. Beard’s gone again. ? On a chopper on my way up north. I should be back in a week if we get this thing under control. Meet then?I chuck my phone at the counter and growl. “Fuck!”
“Dad?” Chloe asks from the other side of the island. I swing my gaze up and around to look at her, and she’s watching me and my very poorly concealed rage with wide eyes.
I can’t entirely blame her. I don’t know that she’s ever seen me like this. Hell, I don’t know that I’ve ever been like this before.
“What, Chlo?” I ask, trying not to be short with her and failing miserably. That, of course, only makes my mood that much worse. I’m not the kind of guy who takes his shit out on every innocent bystander he encounters—I don’t want to be that guy. Right now, I just can’t seem to help it.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I clip. I almost laugh—derisively, of course—because even the simplest of things are now tainted with memories. And as much as I’d like not to be, I’m dangerously aware of the irony of using that word.
“Did…did something happen on your date the other night?”
I narrow my eyes, and she steps up to the edge of the island tentatively, resting her hands on the top of it.
“Why would you think that?”
“You’ve… Well, you’ve kind of been in a…” She swallows. “Bad mood ever since you got back from your date Sunday night.”
Back from my date. Sunday night. With…Christ, what was her name? Laura? Lauren?
Lucy? Yes, that’s it. Sweet, pretty Lucy. The woman who did absolutely nothing wrong yet didn’t have a chance in hell at keeping me at that bowling alley for very long after I witnessed Holley storm away from the table behind our lane with more than a little discomfort in her eyes. I tried to watch where she went—to be able to follow her—but between the crowd and Lucy asking me if I was okay, I lost track of her.
Seeing her like that and not being able to do anything about it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through, and I’ve been through some hard shit—foster care, BUD/S training, my time in the field as a SEAL, raising Chloe alone.
I don’t want anything about Holley to be another item on that list, but she didn’t give me a choice.
She shut me out—pushed me away—not the other way around.
And unfortunately for Lucy, instead of being a good guy and attempting to finish the date, I played the role of fucking coward—a role that doesn’t exactly come naturally to former SEAL.
I ended the night before we’d even finished our first game by feeding her a lie about there being an emergency with Chloe and needing to get home.
Yeah. I even involved my daughter in my bullshit.
Talk about a fucking prick of a move, right? Trust me, I am not proud of any of it.
Seeing Chloe standing there across from me, waiting for answers I don’t know how to give, just makes me feel that much worse.
“What’s going on, Dad?” Chloe asks again when I don’t offer any sort of comment on her painfully true observation. “What happened? I mean, it’s so obvious that something is going on with you since—”
I shake my head. “Chloe—”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll work itself out, Dad. The party is Friday, and I’m sure—”
I cut her off, slicing through the air with a chop of my arm. “No. No stupid fucking contest. No more Bachelor Anonymous. I’m done with the whole thing. I don’t need to go to the party. I want out of it.”
Her eyes widen. I’ve never been so careless with the way I speak to her before, and we both know it. Still, she powers on, her voice a whisper.
“Dad, be serious. You have to go.”
“No, Chloe, I don’t. I did this for you, and you know what? You were right. I needed to open myself up, but it didn’t work out. I didn’t find relationship potential or love in any of these women. Which means I don’t need to go put on some mockery of a show Friday night and act like I actually did.”