Page 30 of Impossible Bachelor (Bachelor Tower 2)
As I pull into the driveway of his business I realize it’s looking a hell of a lot less rundown. New windows. The yard has been cleaned up. Even his sign is new. I wonder what my father will think when I come knocking on his door, but I don’t get the chance to find out.
He’s sitting on the steps sipping on a soda and rocking out to a song on his small FM radio. The funny thing is he doesn’t know it’s me pulling in, and he looks thrilled to have company, no matter who it is.
“Oh my word,” he says as he jumps to his feet. “Kylie-bo-Bylie. What are you doing here? Is everything all right?”
I want to tell him everything is fine. I’m here for a visit and to see how he’s doing now that he’s gotten some business help from Dalton. His small employment agency was in shambles and had been for years. The metaphor about giving the shirt off his back was reality for my father. Too proud to take my money and too stubborn to take my rigid advice, he never let me help.
Dalton found a way to bridge his pride with his needs. I could have done the same, but I was too centered on the negative to see solutions. Things seem to be looking up around here. So the easy thing to tell my dad, who is looking at me with nervous anticipation, is that everything is all right in my life.
“Oh Dad, I’m a mess. I had something good and I screwed it all up.” His wiry arms fold around me.
“Oh Kylie, it’ll be all right. Tell me what happened.” He guides me to the steps, turns his radio down, and pats the cement next to him. “Sit and talk with me a while.”
I wipe at my stinging eyes and rest my head on his shoulder. “I don’t want to become Mom.”
“Beautiful? Strong?”
“Toxic. Angry.”
“She’s not toxic.” His voice is stern, which is new for him. “She’s driven.”
“Like me?” Part of me wants him to agree, part of me wants him to say I’m nothing like her.
“There’s nothing wrong with being driven. You have so much to give to this world, and you give it every day. I’m proud of you.”
“You have to say that, you’re my dad.” I sigh. “I also have a horrible temper and next to no patience.”
“I would imagine a little bit of that anger in you is from me. I made my mistakes, Kylie, and you paid for them. More than anyone, you paid the price.”
“You did what you thought was right. You gave everything you had to people who needed it. I know I sided with Mom, and I hurt you in the process.”
“The fact that you felt you had to choose is where we failed you. I’ve learned a lot over the years. Giving away my last dollar wasn’t fair to the people who were counting on me to support them. I wasn’t fair to your mother. She couldn’t count on me, and that’s why our marriage didn’t work.”
“If you could go back you’d do it differently?” I take in a deep breath and imagine what my life would have been like had my father and mother stayed together.
“Absolutely.” He pats my leg gently. “I love helping people. But I wouldn’t put the high I feel when I do it above the welfare of the people I love. That’s what it was for me. I felt good when I did good. What I couldn’t see was how I could have helped people more by not going to the extreme.”
Extremes. Yeah, I’ve been there. “I’ve hurt people. People I care about because I needed them to prove they could love me no matter who I was.”
“Love doesn’t work that way, Kylie.”
“I see that now.”
“You’re smart, Kylie. You’ll figure out how to make it right.”
“I’m definitely going to try. It might be too late for some, but there are changes I need to make regardless.”
I wrap my arms around him and do something I haven’t done since I was a child; I give him a tight hug. “Dad?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Kylie-boo.” He chuckles, but I also see tears fill his eyes.
They fill my eyes too. I smile.
In that moment what Dr. Medio said really clicks. Not everyone I love will stay with me. Ben may not want me in his life after what he saw, but the changes I want to make can’t be about him. Healing has to be about me first.
“Dad, what do you think about going out to dinner with me this week?”
“I’d love that, Kylie.”
“We could invite Penny and Dalton.”
Dad is smiling.
I say, “Things are going to be different from now on, Dad. I want to be part of your life.”
“You always have been, Kylie. You always have been.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Ben
My finger hovers over the send button. I’ve written up my normal proposal document for List to Leisure. I have it addressed to all the usual players. A bidding war would normally ensue, and this project would be off my plate in about three months. But I’m hesitating. This email has been ready to go three times today, and I keep shutting my computer down.
Kylie was right. I’m ready to launch these products on my own. There’s nothing stopping me except maybe having a good woman like Kylie in my life. Bouncing ideas off her, challenging my normal thought process, she made me stretch into being a better man.
I pull her number up on my phone for the hundredth time since I walked out of her apartment and consider what would happen if I call. She’d probably send me to voicemail the first time. Block my number if I tried it again. I can’t blame her. At the first sign of her really needing me, I walked out. I didn’t know what to do, my pride was dinged up, and I bailed.
Closing my computer without sending the email, I decide to take Dalton up on his offer. Dinner over at their place won’t be the same without Kylie, but it’s better than sitting alone in this room continuing to almost send an email or almost dial the phone.
When I get to their door I can’t help but hold my breath. Maybe Kylie will be coming out of her apartment or heading back home from the gym. But she’s not. The hallway is quiet when Penny opens the door and lets me in.
“You came.”
“Is this weird now?”
“Honestly it was kind of weird before. I’m not used to hanging out with Kylie’s boyfriends. This might be less weird.” She’s only trying to make me feel better, but I appreciate the effort. She hands me a beer as Dalton comes out of the bedroom, just finishing up a call.
“You came,” he says to me.
“Enough with the surprise.”
“Well, I think it’s good,” Dalton announces. “Kylie might need more time to come around, but it doesn’t mean you have to hide out. You didn’t technically do anything wrong.”
“Technically no.” I take a long swig off my beer and try to erase the memory of Kylie’s expression when she told me to leave and I actually did.
Penny cuts in, sounding sad. “I just wish she’d talk to me. I thought we were getting close.”
“Until I fucked it up for you; sorry Penny.” The more time I’ve had to think about how I walked away from Kylie, the more I regret not handling it better. “I see one thing I don’t like, and I bolt. I told her to let me in, and when she did I let her down.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Dalton grabs a beer for himself and spins off the top. “You only found out all that shit because Penny tried to burn the building down—again. It’s not like Kylie was being upfront with you.”
Penny puts her hands on her hips and blows a loose hair out of her face. “It was a tiny grease fire that we all agree was my mother’s fault.”
“I could have handled it better. Maybe she needed more time. I asked too much of her too soon.”
Penny’s expression softens. “Your heart was in the right place.”
“I’m going to make this right.” I pound my fist into my palm. “There has to be something I can do.”
A banging comes from the wall that separates Dalton’s and Kylie’s apartment, and we all turn to look.
“Do you think she’s adding us to the vision board,” Pen
ny jokes, trying to lighten the moment.
No one laughs because none of us have spoken to her to know if she’s handling it well or if I sent her over the edge. Kylie is right there. Right on the other side of this wall. I need to see her.
Dalton must see the look in my eyes. “Don’t go over there unless you know what you’re going to say.”
He’s got a point.
“I want her in my life. I love her. I don’t have much beyond that.”
Penny gives my shoulder a pat and pushes me toward the door. “That sounds like a good place to start.”
Just then her phone beeps, and she says, “It’s Kylie. She wants to know if I can come over for a minute.”
I selfishly wanted to be the one to get that call, but I’m happy at the same time for Penny and what this means for their relationship. “Go,” I say and head back in to sit with Dalton. He hands me a beer. I need it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Kylie
When I do something I make sure I do it well. If I have a public speaking engagement, I commit my speech to memory. If I’m going to meet a new client, I make sure I’m fully briefed on them. Flying blind is my worst nightmare. Seeming unsure gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Ben took me completely off guard. My entire adult life has been about making sure I am my own woman. Whole. Independent. Every victory has been work related until Ben.
Now I’m reassessing what is most important in my life. I feel like I spent all this time color blind, not really knowing what I was missing. Ben swept in and showed me how vibrant and full my life can be and I’m not willing to go back.
