The Trouble with Picket Fences by Teri Wilson

Author:Teri Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2021-01-08T16:22:31+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The following day, Eli made a rare appearance at the fire station after school. Cap was in his office, filling out paperwork for the chief who oversaw the rural Vermont stations, when his son slapped a paper covered in pencil squiggles on his desk.

“Hello to you, too.” Cap leaned back in his chair and grinned at Eli. He was starting to look so grown-up. Even the framed picture on the corner of Cap’s desk that he’d taken during one of Eli’s freshman lacrosse games last year looked woefully outdated.

“Hi.” Eli gave him a lopsided smile and then pointed at the paper. “But seriously, Dad. Look.”

Cap’s gaze swept over the page. It was filled with equations that gave him a major flashback to his Differential Equations for Dummies book, which was buried at the bottom of one of his desk drawers, hopefully never to be seen again. But in the paper’s top margin, a big A with a circle around it had been written in fat red Sharpie ink.

Cap looked at Eli. “No way.”

“We had a pop quiz today, and I aced it. Can you believe it?” Eli flopped down in the spare office chair on the opposite side of Cap’s desk. “Miss Carlisle—I mean, Melanie—really helped.”

Cap nodded. “I’m sure she’d love to hear about this A. Her shop is right across the street. Maybe you should stop by and let her know before you walk home.”

“I will.” Eli grinned.

It had been a while since Cap had seen such unabashed joy on his son’s face. It made him feel strangely wistful for something he couldn’t quite identify—either the past, or maybe a future he was only beginning to think might be an actual possibility.

Eli leaned forward in his chair, forehead scrunching. “What’s the deal with the two of you, anyway?”

“Um...” Cap redirected his gaze back down to the paper. He had no idea how to answer that question.

On the one hand, Eli had nearly walked in on Cap and Melanie almost kissing last night. But they’d sprung apart the second they’d heard Eli in the kitchen. Cap wasn’t even sure why. It had just been an automatic reaction.

Maybe it had something to do with the number of years it had been since he’d kissed anyone. Cap definitely remembered how, but he wasn’t sure he was ready for an audience, particularly if that audience was his fourteen-year-old son.

Plus, Melanie had pretty much fled immediately afterward. Cap hadn’t even been able to get her to stay long enough to join him and Eli for reheated pizza. Weren’t pregnant women supposed to be hungry all the time?

“Nothing is going on,” Cap said, which was—sadly—all too accurate.

Eli’s gaze narrowed. “So you’re not dating or anything?”

“No.” Cap refused to believe he was already at the age where going to doctor’s appointments together counted as dating. “We’re friends.”

That’s what Melanie had kept saying over and over again. Friends. Cap had been wrong to nearly kiss her. The timing hadn’t been right at all. She’d been vulnerable—crying, for goodness’ sake.

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