Page 7 of Hogging the Hunk
That was enough for most people, which is why Bonita joked I should start charging double for my services—one bill for my veterinarian expertise, the other for the therapy session my clients seemed to get as they talked my ear off. The thought never seriously crossed my mind. Clients rambling while I worked was comforting, sort of like having a television on in the background.
I’d done that in the evenings when my house felt too quiet. Loneliness was another secret I kept to myself. Today, that changed.
The door from the mudroom to the garage opened, and Ellie poked her head out. “There you are. I was going to call and see what was taking you so long.”
Her sass made me laugh. Bumping my truck door shut with my hip, I carried all the groceries on one arm. It cut off my blood flow at the wrist, but better than having to take a second trip inside.
Shopping was more eventful than usual.
“Sorry.” I punctuated my apology with a grin.
Lifting one of the bags from my arm, she peered inside. Her eyes widened. “Wow. You preparing for the apocalypse or something?”
“I thought I ought to restock. The shelves were looking bare.”
Filling my cart with food also eased the awkwardness of buying my weight in feminine products. Plus, it allowed me to decompress after all I’d witnessed with Beckett. She might be smitten with Greg. I was not impressed.
“You’re telling me. I ate stale pretzels for a snack.” Ellie made a face.
Laughing again, I followed her into the mudroom where I sat on the bench and kicked off my boots. One of the best parts of my house was that I had an entire room I could bring my work inside, and it didn’t matter how messy I made it. I could practically hose down the mudroom, and if I was in a real hurry, I could just shut the door behind me and pretend like there wasn’t a mess hiding behind a solid slab of carved oak.
Life would be so much easier if we could all have a sturdy door to hide our secrets behind and a hose to wash the worst ones away.
“Now you’re complaining that I bought too much ice cream?” Ice cream hadn’t initially been on the grocery list I conjured up as I walked the aisles, but I figured it was an essential with Ellie living with me now. I’d witnessed her having a hard day before. When things were roughest, she ate it right out of the carton, like she was self-medicating with caramel swirl and cookie dough chunks.
“No.” She sniffed. “I haven’t seen you buy this much food at once before. Usually you fly by the seat of your pants and end up going back to get groceries every single day.”
“I’m trying to be more responsible, now that my mom’s living with me.” I poked her in the stomach, making her giggle.
The sound of her happiness was magical. My relationship with Ellie had been rough and unconventional when she was younger. Lexi, her mother, and I had a toxic relationship long before Ellie came around. It didn’t help that I was a self-absorbed loser with no direction or ambition for my life. Ellie changed that all. Knowing I was a father helped me realize the universe no longer revolved around me, and that I was given the privilege of guiding another soul as they started on life’s journey. There were rocky times, when I wasn’t sure how I could possibly live up to the responsibility of fatherhood. Whenever I doubted, a smile from Ellie would put everything back into perspective. I counted it a win every time I made her happy enough to laugh.
Picking up the two reusable bags it took to pack up all the feminine supplies Beckett recommended, I handed them to Ellie. “Uh, your grandmother told me you’d need these, too.” Careful not to look her in the eye, I busied myself with slipping out of my coveralls so they could go in the wash.
“Grandma told you…?” I could hear the blush creeping up her cheeks.
And this was the moment I was reticent about all the way back when I was circling the feminine products aisle at the grocery store. Invading anyone’s personal space, least of all Ellie’s, was not my intention.
“She reminded me you’re not a little girl anymore.” My voice was hoarse. Water and pretending like I wasn’t the single father of a daughter old enough to have visits from Aunt Flo were the only things that would cure it. “Someone I know endorsed everything I bought. It should be quality stuff.”
“What?!” Ellie’s question came out like the roar of any angry lioness. When her anger took the wheel, Ellie reminded me so much of her mother, Lexi. Initially, the thought had made me cringe until I accepted even Lexi had some redeeming qualities she’d passed on to our daughter. Hopefully I had, too. So Ellie was passionate? I’d figure out how to manage. “You talked to someone I don’t know about me having my… my…” Her voice dropped low like she was worried about the neighbors peering in the windows to listen. “Period?”
Resting my hands on my knees, I gazed calmly at Ellie. Imagining she was a ticked-off mare that would love nothing more than to trample me, it took the edge off Ellie’s rage. If I had to choose between the two, though, I’d gladly take a bolting horse. Unfortunately, the choice was only in my head. I had a daughter to calm, and her face was turning crimson from suppressed tears. That was a knife through the heart. I never intended on making her cry. “I didn’t tell my friend who I was buying all these things for.”
Ellie’s nostrils flared. “It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out, Milo.”
Uh oh. She just called you Milo instead of Dad. The risk of this all blowing up in my face was imminent. I could almost hear central command starting the countdown.
“I’m sorry, honey. There was no ill intent about discussing product quality with another person. All I want is for you to be comfortable while you’re here, and part of that is acknowledging that you are a young woman now.”
Pouting, Ellie cupped her elbows in her hands.
“The alternative to quietly buying a few items for you with the help of someone else’s suggestions would be to have bought everything they had in stock and toted it home for you to choose. Can you imagine the looks I would have gotten with towering boxes of tampons swaying in my truck bed? There would be a trail of them all the way home, and then everyone would really know who’d bought what and where they’d gone.”
A smile cracked Ellie’s stony expression. “I see your point.”
The tight fist around my heart loosened, and hope lit the end of the tunnel. “I’m sorry you’re upset. I’m just trying to do the best I can and until we get in a rhythm, there are going to be times where we hit bumps in the road because neither of us is perfect. Let’s agree to roll with it, okay?”
With her lips pressed tightly into a thin line, Ellie acknowledged her agreement with a tiny bob of her head. If she inherited Lexi’s dark eyes and passion, I liked to believe she inherited her ability to see reason from me.