Single All the Way (Single Dads of Dragonfly Lake #2)

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Ben

“ W hat the heck did you do?” I asked as I walked into exam room one for my first appointment of the day.

My buddy Max Dawson was crouched in front of the two chairs where most of my human clients sat, trying to urge someone out.

“Come on, Mahomes,” he said to whatever was under the chairs. Felines, according to my tech Kat’s notes.

As he reached farther under to grab Mahomes, a fluffy gray kitten wandered out from the other side of the cabinet and looked up at me.

“Who is this?” I bent down and held out my hand, wiggling my fingers.

“That,” Max said as he stood up holding a orange kitten about the same size, “is Monet.”

The little beast looked at my fingers half-cross-eyed and couldn’t resist pouncing toward them. When he got close enough, I scooped him up.

“Aren’t you a cute one?” I held the critter at eye level in one hand.

He looked to be about ten to twelve weeks old and had curious eyes that didn’t miss anything—and razor-sharp claws that could put holes in a guy.

“Mahomes and Monet. I get the football connection, but French Impressionism?” I asked.

“Harper named that one. She likes the way it sounds with Mahomes, plus art representation.”

“You don’t have to work today?”

“This is my planning period. I’ve got about forty minutes left.”

“Let’s not waste time then.” I looked at Monet’s underside and confirmed he was a male, then took him to the exam table and started a routine kitten exam. “Saturday night at Chance’s, you didn’t mention adopting kittens,” I said.

“Saturday night at Chance’s, I didn’t have any intention of adopting kittens,” Max countered. “Then yesterday, some asshat abandoned these two in a cardboard box at the edge of my yard.”

I clenched my jaw and shook my head at the callousness of people. “So you’re keeping them?”

Max chuckled. “Between Harper and Danny, I didn’t stand a chance. When I called your office at seven thirty, Colby said she could work us in before your first appointment. I thought you should check them over, make sure they’re healthy.”

“They look pretty good on the outside, like someone’s been taking care of them.”

“We gave them a bath last night. They were a little ragged, but their appetites are voracious. They like tuna.”

“Human tuna?” I asked.

“It’s all we had. I’ll pick up cat food today.”

“We sell it here. Save yourself a trip. I don’t suppose the asshats left a note saying whether these two were vaccinated?”

Max scoffed and shook his head.

“We’ll give them full dosages to be sure. I’ll also do a blood test to rule out the bad stuff. I don’t see any fleas, so they must’ve been kept inside.”

Max stood on the other side of the table, up against it. He tried to hold Mahomes still on the surface, but the orange kitten insisted on climbing Max’s sweatshirt and perching on his shoulder.

“Danny must be in kitten bliss.” I knew exactly the spot Max had found himself in with baby animals thrown in his lap and a toddler’s instant love. It would do my friend some good to have these two feline menaces running the household.

“I’ve never heard so much infectious giggling.” Big, tough football coach Max had a goofy, happy grin on his face.

I wouldn’t say he hadn’t smiled before Harper, but his grins were wider now and made his eyes light up. He’d loved Danny from the start but had been uptight. From where I stood, it seemed like Harper had lightened Max up good.

“Kittens’ll do that,” I said, laughing at the big-eyed look Monet gave me as I palpated his abdomen.

“How’d move-in day go?”

“It was sheer chaos, but we got it done. Or rather the movers got it done.”

Max shook his head. “I still can’t believe you spontaneously offered to take in four more souls in need.” He’d been giving me shit about my “rescue syndrome” since I adopted the llamas.

“I could say the same to you.” I held up the kitten in a cheers-type salute, then gestured for him to trade cats with me so I could check out Mahomes.

“I guess your point is valid,” he allowed. “To think two years ago, I lived alone in a quiet house…”

I laughed. “This is better though, right?”

“This is so much fucking better.” He grinned like a man infatuated with both his boy and his fiancée. I had a feeling he was halfway there with these kittens too. “You should try it.”

My traitorous brain flashed to Emerson, but I shut it down immediately, just as I’d done last night after our talk in the kitchen. Instead I forced a laugh. “My life is full to overflowing, man. You just said so yourself.”

“Your responsibilities are full to overflowing. Not the same thing.”

I went quiet while I listened to Mahomes’s heart, acting too focused to respond.

“Don’t you want a partner in life? A woman to love?” Max persisted. “Emerson’s good-looking. Any attraction there?”

I shook my head, but there was so much damn attraction. I couldn’t admit it out loud. It was bad enough I’d let those thoughts climb into my head, making it that much harder to shut out Emerson’s allure.

I needed to slam down on it with a vengeance. Hell, it was day two of her staying with me, and I’d already slipped up and brushed her hair back this morning in an intimate way that didn’t exist between us. Couldn’t exist between us.

“You sure about that?” he asked.

“Just friends. We’ve known each other forever.”

“She’s living in your house. You’re sharing meals, kids, animals, even holidays. That’s a lot of togetherness. Lots of chances for some off-script.”

Didn’t I know it. I was the dumbest ass alive to have taken her and her kids in, yet if I had to make the decision again, I wouldn’t change it.

“Emerson’s important to me,” I said. “Blake and I were friends from the age of three. She was his wife.”

That I’d been attracted to her first, before Blake had ever asked her out, didn’t matter.

Though I’d known Emerson in a surface way since grade school, I hadn’t gotten to know her on a deeper level until sophomore year in high school.

We’d been assigned as biology lab partners for the semester. She was outgoing and popular. I wasn’t an outsider, but I wasn’t as social as Blake or the others in that circle. Shy, serious, and studious was probably how someone would’ve described me even though I did play basketball and run cross-country.

Emerson had been social, friendly, the kind of girl who always had a smile. I don’t know why it took being her lab partner for me to notice how pretty that smile was. Maybe it was because I got to know her beyond the surface. The better I’d gotten to know her, the more I’d liked her.

I’d been a late bloomer, more interested in grades and science than girls. She was my first crush.

Back then, I hadn’t been overflowing with confidence. I’d kept my feelings to myself, looking forward to fourth-period biology in a way I never would’ve guessed or admitted to anyone. I started to care more about lab days and what Emerson and I might talk about than the biology lesson itself as we extracted DNA from a banana or dissected a frog, and that was saying something for a kid like me.

In hindsight, not confessing my feelings to Blake had possibly changed the course of my life—and his and hers. Oblivious to my interest in her, Blake had asked Emerson to homecoming that year. They’d started dating, stayed together throughout high school, and the rest was history.

I’d never stood a chance.

Our lives had gone in different directions, with Blake enlisting after graduation, them getting married soon after and moving away, and me heading off to college.

Max was studying me as I examined Mahomes’s ears and eyes, then checked in his mouth for teeth. There were a couple breaking through, confirming my guess on his age.

“I knew Blake from sports,” Max said. “He seemed like a decent guy—the type who’d want Emerson to be happy if something happened to him.”

I nodded, pretending not to understand what he was hinting at.

Blake and I had been inseparable as kids. His grandma had lived next door to me, so whenever he visited her, which was several times a week, we got together. We played T-ball together, hung out in my treehouse, played video games in person and online.

In the four years Emerson had been back in Dragonfly Lake, she’d been grieving and raising her kids, much like I had. There was nothing deeper between us, just platonic support that went both ways, mostly where our kids were concerned. Only since she’d moved into my house had those adolescent sparks of attraction been reignited.

It felt wrong to think of her in any way but as a friend.

“Emerson’s holding her own during a challenging time,” I said. “Her little girl’s having a hard time. Slept with Emerson last night instead of in Ev’s room. She didn’t want to go to preschool today, so Emerson kept her home.”

“Kizzy threw them into a mess, didn’t she?”

“Sold the house out from under them. I’d be pissed, but Emerson says her mother-in-law deserves whatever happiness she can find. I think she’s genuinely happy for the woman.”

“She’s a better person than me then. I’d be hot too,” Max said, stretching to catch Monet before he skittered from Max’s shoulder down his back.

“It could be a tough few weeks for them—or longer—before Emerson finds a house. I can’t change the real estate market or the lack of housing, but I can help in other ways.”

Max’s brows shot up suggestively. “I can think of a few ways.”

“Quit acting twelve,” I told him, laughing. “I’ll just be there for her. Someone to pour her a glass of wine when the kids are making her nuts. She’s a single mom, but she’s had Kizzy’s help since moving back. Now she doesn’t.”

“Parenthood is sure as hell a little less difficult when you have a partner.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.” I didn’t hate the idea of teaming up while the Esteses were staying with us. “We’re including them in our Thanksgiving in every way, with all the trimmings and traditions.”

“The kids will love it. Emerson too.”

“They’ve had a rough few months. It’ll be a while before they get settled somewhere.”

“Lucky thing they just moved in with a knight-in-shining-armor type,” Max quipped.

“I can’t fix their housing problem, but I can spread Christmas spirit around like glitter.”

“So…what? You’re going to Christmas the crap out of them?”

As I scratched Mahomes between the ears and got his purr motor revved up, I nodded. It was an easy call. “Yep. Like it or not, Emerson and her kids are about to experience Christmas the Holloway way. It’ll be life-changing,” I joked.

“For them?” Max asked, looking smug, “or you?”

“Them.” I made my voice strong with conviction, but as I walked out after telling him Kat would be in for the bloodwork, I felt a hell of a lot less sure.

Christmas spirit I could handle. A crushed heart… No, thank you very much. I’d just have to keep a tight rein on myself.