Mine to Promise (Southern Wedding #6)(68)
“Do you want to go and get some breakfast started?” I pick her up and put her on my lap, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her close to me. She lays her head on me as she nods. My chest fills so much it is sometimes hard to breathe, but at the same time I feel a dread. Today for the first time since I found her, I’m going to work. I mean, I was working before but today I’m flying out and going into the office to have a couple of meetings.
“Do I have daycare today?” She looks up at me, and I nod. She climbs off my lap, and I stand.
“Go get dressed,” I tell her, “then meet me downstairs.” She turns and walks toward her bedroom.
The shower turns off as I grab her cup of coffee, walking to the bathroom. When I open the door, I find her wrapping a towel around herself. “Avery is up.” I hand her the coffee cup. “I’m going to go make her breakfast.”
“Don’t you have to pack?” she asks me, and my stomach tightens.
“I’ll drop Avery off and then come home to pack,” I say to her. “Are you hungry?”
“Not really, I sort of ate already today.”
I shake my head. “That you did.” I kiss her neck and then kiss her lips before returning downstairs to start breakfast.
Avery eats some pancakes and fruit before we all usher each other out the door. I put Avery in my car before walking over to Addison’s. “I’ll call you later.” I wrap my arms around her. “And I’ll FaceTime you for dinner.”
“Okay,” she says softly, “fly safe.” She kisses my lips. “See you on Saturday.”
I nod at her, giving her one more kiss before I open her door and she gets in. I hold my hand up as she pulls out of the driveway before I get into my car. I take my time driving Avery to daycare, and
when I park she hops out. I walk way slower than I should, stopping at her classroom door, I squat in front of her. “I’ll call you tonight,” I tell her, “and then this weekend we could maybe go to the zoo.”
“Okay, Dad,” she says, not even giving a shit that my heart is breaking right now. She has no idea the hold she has on me.
“Give me a hug and kiss,” I tell her and she walks into my outstretched arms and kisses my cheek.
“I love you,” I say to her and she just runs into her class, turning and waving at me before joining her friends who are shouting her name.
Packing is a piece of cake. I’ve done this before so many times, I can do it with my eyes closed.
Even when I get on the plane, I think to myself that this is the longest I’ve been in one place. The flight flies by, and two hours after I left my house, I’m walking into our office. “Holy shit,” my partner, Levi, says when I walk in, “he’s still alive.” He’s dressed in what for sure was a suit but he took off his jacket. We’ve been friends since our first day in college when we took computer coding together.
The two of us were at the top of the class and then we just started hanging out together. We opened the company together and fast-forward about twelve years and here we are.
I laugh. “I worked every day,” I tell him as I walk over to my office, open the door, and feel the stuffiness come out. I dump my bag on the love seat in the corner before walking over to my desk. The mail has been piled up. “What time is the meeting?”
“We can start whenever you are ready,” Levi says to me.
“I’m good to go,” I state, grabbing my laptop from my bag and heading to the conference room.
“The war room,” Levi says, coming in with his own laptop in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. “I don’t know about you,” he says, sitting down, “but I love, love, love these times.” He leans back in his chair, waiting for the rest of the staff to come and join us. “How have things been?”
“Good.” I try not to smile big, but I can’t help it. “Amazing, really.”
“You look good.” He rocks in his chair back and forth. “Saw a couple of pictures of your daughter and your…” He trails off, making me laugh. “What are you calling her?”
I chuckle and look down at my hands and then declare, “Mine.” He just laughs. “You should try it.”
He looks at me, his eyebrows pinching together. “Are you crazy?”
“What?” I lean back, mimicking him. “The proverbial bachelor can settle.”
He chuckles. “Not my thing.”
“Until you find the right person,” I tell him, and he huffs and rolls his eyes at me.
“I’ll take your word for it.” He leans forward, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up his sleeves.
“The only woman I’ve had in my life for longer than one night is Eva, and that’s only because she’s always been my wingman. She knows all my secrets and is always there when I need her.”
“You mean she wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole,” I remind him of what she told me the last time she came in, and I joked about them dating.
“That also.” He points at me. “She can smell my bullshit a mile away.” He stops talking when
more people come in and say hello to me.
The seats are all taken as we go through our list of clients. “Okay, people,” I say, clapping my hands, “let’s get this done.” I know we have to go through our client list and see if they have any needs. Then we have to go through our waiting list to see which clients we are going to be taking on in the next couple of months. I lean back in my chair as Levi starts in on the first name on the list.