Page 105 of Scouting the Single Dad

“I’m keeping this,” I say, lifting it to my nose. “It smells like you.”

How I’m supposed to let her leave is beyond me.

Chapter 26

Layla

As soon as the wheels of the plane touch down in Washington, Star Lake reality rushes back. It’s raining. The clean, mossy weather chills my bones in a way that only the mountains and fresh air can.

When I take my phone off Airplane Mode, I find three texts from Faith, two from my landlord about the garbage pickup schedule once it begins snowing, and none from a number I’ve been checking for since I landed.

Nothing.

I tell myself that’s a good thing. We’re adults. Mature. Not needy. Friends.

Or at least, that was my mindset before my common sense got screwed senseless into a puddle on a Scottsdale mattress, over and over again . . .

“Welcome home, liar.”

I am so, so weak.

By the time I claim my luggage, I’ve rewritten our last hour together into twenty different versions—every one of them ending the same way: me walking away with my head held high and intentions clear. It was just a brief thing—not a forever thing—and at some point in the near future, I promise myself I’m going to force myself back into the dating pool.

Faith:

You home yet?? Coffee? I have gossip.

Faith:

Or I’ll bring coffee to You. I can be at your place in ten.

I stare at her bubbles, thumb hovering. Coffee with Faith is usually an automatic yes.

But at the moment the inside of my head is a muddled mess. If she looks me in the face, it will tell her everything she needs to know: that I thought I could walk away from Hayes and Benny without all the emotional entanglement, but the truth is I can’t.

When he said the sex was going to make him impossible to forget, he wasn’t wrong.

It’s not just the sex, though, is it?

It’s everything about him. It’s the way he parents—steady, funny, relentlessly present—and how Benny’s bravest version of herself seems to bloom when he’s in the room. It’s the quiet after, when neither of us feels the need to fill it. He’s dark and light and broody but soft. Kind and caring but protective.

And I already miss him.

Funny how that works, hey?

Me:

Can we rain-check? I’m gross and my suitcase lost a wheel on the trip back. It’s been one of those days . . .

Three dots appear immediately.

Faith:

You get One grace period if you promise to send me voice notes later.

She is going to pester me until I relent.

Me: