Playing to Win: A Contemporary Romance Box Set by Romi Hart

Author:Romi Hart [Hart, Romi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-06T05:00:00+00:00

13

Jasmine

I met with Rebecca at Orange Spot for coffee. Orange Spot was a cozy little coffee house that made up for its lack of size with kitschy endearing charm. Knit orange and green gators hung from the ceiling. Each table was overlain with glass protecting felt woodland animals smiling up at you.

It felt good to talk to someone who knew my family, my mother included. Pouring my heart out over a caramel latte, I told Rebecca everything. She listened kindly and wasn’t pushy with her observations or suggestions. It was too bad I had refused her friendship when I was a kid. She was the perfect person to talk to about life’s dilemmas.

She squeezed my hand from across the tiny table. “Your father loves you very much.”

“It doesn’t feel like it sometimes.” I fidgeted with my coffee cup’s handle looking down at a baby deer who had a sparrow perched on his antler.

She rested her chin on her hand, grinning. “When you were growing up, your father would ask me for advice about you. He was worried he’d screw up raising a teenage daughter on his own.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “I didn’t know that.”

“You know all those walks your father and I took around the farm.” She raised her eyebrows. “Still take, on occasion?”

I nodded, shrugging. “Ya. You guys talk about dad’s oxen.”

“Sometimes, but mostly we talked about you. He asked me for advice about you.” She chuckled. “Your dad was terrified to raise a girl all on his own. If you ask me, he did a wonderful job.”

I sat back into the seat of the chair. “Really? You guys talked about me?”

"He loves you and your brother so much. I try to tell him he has to let grow a little, but you know your father. Truly stubborn as an ox."

We both laughed. My father, the ox whisperer, was in fact, himself, an ox. All these years, when my dad was in the paddock with his oxen with Rebecca, they were talking about me? I exhaled slowly. All the things I never knew about my father.

Earlier that morning, my brother had knocked on my door to tell me my dad still insisted he didn’t need me at the restaurant. Instead of having another uncomfortable day of hiding in the shadows of the kitchen, I decided to stay away from the restaurant.

After coffee with Rebecca, I went home and caught up with schoolwork. If I was going to spend the night away from home, I needed to make sure I studied beforehand. I had a Biochem exam later that week that I intended to ace. There was so much I needed to cover that I got caught up in enzyme thermodynamics. When I realized what time it was, the game had already started.

Leaving my car at home in the driveway so my dad wouldn't suspect I'd left, I took an Uber over to the stadium. It took forever to get an Uber driver to come all the way out to Ocala.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.