Page 30 of I Think He Knows
Legs studies my face for a long, silent moment. Then she sighs. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad was it?”
For the first time all evening, my smile is genuine. Because my daughter? She has sass in bucketloads. So much so that I know I never have to worry about her future grown-up self sitting through a date like the one I did tonight.
“Ten being the worst it could be?”
She nods.
“Eleven.”
Legs sits up in bed and rubs her eyes before looking at me. “Woah. That’s pretty bad,” she says solemnly, her big brown eyes—she has my eyes—wide and unblinking. “So no new dad for me?”
Her sentence stings my stomach. I want to be everything she needs, but being a sole caregiver comes with a whole lot of nuances and challenges, and I know the best thing I can do for my daughter right now is to validate her feelings, even if those feelings make me insecure. “Honey, do you feel like you’re missing out by not having a daddy? Is it something you’re thinking about a lot?”
“Kind of. I want you to have a husband. And then I get a daddy, too.”
I lean forward to wrap my arms around my daughter. “I don’t need a husband, sweetie. I have everything I need right here.”
Legs pats my back like she’s consolingme, then she wriggles out of the hug. “But you watch movies with people kissing all the time and then you cry at the end, but always pretend you don’t, and I think it’s because you have nobody to kiss.”
She’s scarily discerning for a nine-year-old, and I could not be more proud of the person she is growing up to be. I’ve made mistakes as a mother, sure, but Allegra has been my one and only priority these past nine years.
And now, my sweet daughter is apparently tuned into me enough to observe that I’m “sad I have nobody to kiss.”
“It doesn’t matter if I have anyone to kiss,” I tell her.
“Sure, it does. Uncle Luke has Auntie Mindy, and they’re always kissing. And Uncle Liam has Auntie Annie now.”
She’s right. My two older brothers—once known for being a notorious playboy and an incurable grump, respectively—have both found and married women they adore, and who make them better.
“But look at you, Mom. You’re all sad and lonely.”
“I’m not sure I’d use those exact adjectives.”
“You need to keep going on dates until you find the right man to marry.”
“I don’t know about that, Allegra.” I sigh. After tonight, I’m not exactly feeling inspired to date any more. I’ve given it more than a fair shot, and I’m frankly exhausted with it all. Maybe eternal singledom really is the answer for me. “Whatever I do, I need you to know that you willalwayscome first and I will always love you the most.”
Allegra nods. “I love you, too, Mommy. But if the real Harry Styles wanted to marry me, I would love him more than you.”
I nod back. “That’s fair.”
I give her one last kiss goodnight, smooth her hair back from her face, and pad to my room, where Lorelai, Rory and a giant sack of stale candy are waiting for me. Back to normality.
Only not.
Because when I open my bedroom door, my breath catches in a little yelp of surprise.
There’s a man sitting on the edge of my bed.
Specifically, the very man I’ve been having bedroom-themed dreams about for so many years now.
Only this time, I’m awake.
I think. Possibly hallucinating. Maybe my hypoglycemia has kicked in again?
Carter looks up from the book he’s thumbing through, his blue eyes more vivid than ever in the dim bedroom light. “Hey, Lan.”
My cheeks turn the color of Snow White’s poison apple when I see that he’s holding Tessa Bailey’sHook, Line and Sinker. The ultimate sexy best friends to lovers rom com book. Those apples only ripen when I notice that he’s got the book cracked open to the dog-eared page where Fox and Hannah finally… you know.