Page 108 of Falling for Keeps

Carson

I really love that Maven started teaching Penny to play the violin last week, but being forced to hear her practice “You Are My Sunshine” on repeat is sending me back to my childhood, and not in a pleasant way. We’ve really got to throw another song into the mix soon.

It’s been over a week since the night I grouted Emma’s tile. That’s the night we felt like we became a real couple. Is it because Penny approved? Partly, maybe. A lot of it is because we became even. Both of us striving to choose the other. Emma has a need to prove that I’m worth sticking around for, and I have a need to prove she’s enough just as she is.

We’ve managed to go fishing with Ben once, and Emma stayed home—I had promised not to make her deal with hooks and animals, after all. Our lives are fitting seamlessly together, like a zipper with no snags. Our expectations are reasonable, and we’re in the stage of a relationship where we want to be around each other all the time and never get tired of talking. More than once this week, I’ve nearly fallen asleep on the phone talking to her. I’m like a teenager again.

Sitting at the desk in my office, I look at the watch on my wrist and turn my arm so it glints in the overhead light. When Jen gave it to me, I was the happiest I’d ever been at that point in my life. A dad to a beautiful little girl, the husband to a fun woman, and starting a career I felt good at.

I could easily spend hours picking apart the years that followed and searching for the moment it all went wrong, but it was a thousand little moments that led to Jen leaving. Now, dating Emma, living with my mom, having Maven and Ben regularly back in my life, I can’t regret any of it.

Jen gave me good years, and she gave me Penny.

Emma makes me happy.

All of these things are true.

I pull out my phone and find Jen’s number, making the call I’ve been putting off ever since the day Penny hid in the corn maze. A little time was necessary to cool my anger, and I’m feeling zen about what I’m about to do.

If the woman picks up her freaking phone.

“Hello?” Jen says, acting like she has no idea who’s calling. Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she thinks I’m Penny.

“Hey, Jen. It’s Carson. We need to talk.”

“Can it wait? I’m about to get on a plane.”

“No, it can’t. I promise it will only take a minute.”

She makes a frustrated sound, but she picked up the phone, so I’m past caring. “Make it fast.”

“It was not okay to give Penny a phone⁠—”

“We’ve gone over this, Carson.”

“—then take it away. You are free to live where you want and date who you want, but you can’t take Penny along on that ride. That’s nonnegotiable.”

Jen falls silent.

“Next time you introduce a man to her, whether it’s virtually, in person, or through gifts like that, you have to check with me first. I expect that you’ll have been with him for one year, minimum, and I need to vet him. I’m not about to let my daughter experience a roller coaster of emotions getting attached to guys or the phones they send her, just to have them ripped away without warning.”

“Honestly, Carson⁠—”

“Nonnegotiable, Jen,” I say firmly. My tone is kind, but it doesn’t allow room for argument. “You gave me parental rights, so I’m invoking them.”

She huffs. “Okay.”

“Please call her more. She loves to hear from you, even if it’s short.”

“I’m kind of busy right now.”

I grit my teeth. “Heading somewhere fun?”

“An audition in LA.”

“Good luck, then. Maybe you can tell her about it when it’s over.”

“I need to go.”