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But a little mutual respect might go a long way between her father and me. Now that I’ve had time to step back and see the entire situation for what it is, I can see that our fathers pitted us against each other for no real reason. My dad was using me as a shield to protect himself, and Joseph reacted the way any rational man would…to avoid the entire family. Except this guy can clearly hold a grudge, and my new mission is to ensure that grudge is held in the proper place, which is against my father. Not me.
Because you know what? I also have a grudge against my father.
So I need to win Joseph over.
I’m just not quite sure how to do that other than to lay all the truths out on the table.
But tonight’s not about Joseph. It’s about his grandson, and when I arrive at the front door for dinner, I come bearing gifts.
It’s a small gesture that I hope means a lot to them both.
Jolene opens the door, and she smiles as she opens it wider to allow me in. I drop a kiss on her lips as I walk in, and I hope this is one of the very last times I have to do this. I’d much rather just go home to have dinner with these two.
“Where are Sam and Cade?” I ask.
“At Devin’s place,” she says, and I follow her into the kitchen, where I find a very messy Jonah trying to clean up what can only be described as a flour explosion on the counter.
“Hi Lincoln!” he says brightly, and I grin.
“Need some help there, little dude?”
“Ba-na-na!” he says, and I chuckle at his impersonation of the minions.
“Ba-na-na!” I say back to him, and I grab the cloth in the sink and start gathering the flour into a pile. “It smells good in here. What did you two make?”
“Ba-na-na bread,” Jonah says. “It was my idea.”
I smile and muss up his hair a little. “That means a lot,” I say.
“What’s in those?” he asks, nodding toward the little wrapped boxes I dropped on the counter.
“Open the one with the blue paper and you’ll find out,” I say.
Jonah grins as he jumps over to open it.
“Hold on just a second there, Jonah Bear. Finish the job first, okay?” Jolene scolds lightly, and Jonah pouts a little as he continues wiping the counter down.
“Are we ready to tell him?” I ask her quietly when he’s out of earshot, and she nods. “The box will give it away.”
I help him out with the cleaning, and once we’re finished, Jonah grabs his box and I hand the box with the white paper to Jolene.
They both tear off the paper, and Jolene gets a little teary when she sees the house key I had made for her with a Vegas Aces keychain attached to it along with another keychain that simply says Coach’s Girl.
I watch Jonah as he opens his box.
He pulls out the housekey with a Minions keychain attached to it, and he looks up with a crinkled brow. “It’s a key.”
I nod. “To my house. Or, rather, to your house.”
“My house?” he asks, and he looks at his mom. “The move is back on?”
She nods as she grins. “The move is back on! So let’s eat some pizza and banana bread, and then let’s start packing because we have to be out of here in five days.”
All three of us laugh, and it’s one of those moments that just feels perfect.
And I see so many more of them coming up in our future.
I know it won’t be perfect, and I know we’ll have our challenges. But it seems like we’ve already overcome so much together, and this is where we landed. We know what it’s like to fight apart, but now that we know what it’s like to fight together, that’s how we’ll do it from here on out.
