As he pulled into the driveway beside the rental car he checked his phone to see if he’d missed a call from her. He hadn’t, which made alarm bells go off.
Why would she come to town without contacting him first?
Was she here to take Blake home?
The thought of losing his daughter for a second time had Asher feeling all sorts of anxiety. He hadn’t fought Jenna when she moved their daughter to Boston because he hadn’t felt like he had a leg to stand on. Literally. He’d just been shot and had months of rehab to do.
But that was then and this was now. She’d been the one to call and ask him for help and he’d dropped everything, quit his job, and moved them across the country to be there for her. Not that he deserved a Brownie badge. That’s what any father would and should do. It was just that he felt it gave him a vote when it came to how they parented her, and if Jenna had come to uproot her again, then he’d be vetoing that motion.
When he shut the engine off, Jenna lifted her head. Her lips parted in a sheepish grin as she waved her hand awkwardly.
“Hey!” He greeted her when he stepped out of his SUV and shut the door. “What are you doing here?” He heard the gruffness in his voice. He hadn’t meant to sound short with her, he was just caught off guard.
She shrugged a little and smiled a little wider. “Witnessing your walk of shame?”
He grinned and didn’t respond, knowing that she was giving him a hard time but was also probably digging for information. Jenna had never appreciated that he lived his life with everyone being on a need-to-know status. She wanted to know all the information, all the time. It was another struggle that they’d had. She hated how private he was.
After a few beats, she shrugged. “I just needed to get away for a little bit. I hope it’s okay that I just showed up like this.”
“Of course it is. It’s good to see you.” He pulled her into a hug and although it felt familiar, and comfortable, it was a far cry from the spark he felt when Ava was in his arms. He hadn’t intentionally compared them, but they were the only two women he’d ever cared about in a romantic sense.
When he released her, he asked, “Does Blake know you’re here?”
“No, I was going to surprise her. But when I showed up and no one answered I checked her Snapchat and saw that she stayed the night at one of her friend’s houses.”
Asher tensed up a little. He hated how easy it was for creeps to find out information online. Guys like Polo Shirt or worse.
“Relax, Rambo.” Jenna chuckled as she playfully swatted him on his arm. “She didn’t give out the address. There were no distinguishing landmarks that would have tipped off weirdos to her location.”
Asher felt his shoulders relax.
“But speaking of her Snapchat, where did you get those moves, Fred Astaire?”
His brow creased. “What?”
“Your daughter posted a bunch of snaps of you on the dance floor at the Hometown Heroes Ball.”
He was going to have a talk with Blake about her posting habits. There was a reason he didn’t have any social media.
“Where did you learn to dance like that?”
“I took dance lessons,” Asher begrudgingly admitted.
Her face contorted. “When?”
“When I was a kid, a teenager.”
“A teenager?! You could dance like that the whole time we were together?!” she exclaimed as she swatted him again, this time not so playfully.
Since he was pretty sure that was a rhetorical question, he remained quiet.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me you could dance?” He could see the hurt in Jenna’s eyes and he felt it like a punch in his gut. That look was one of the reasons he’d never wanted to be in a relationship again. He never wanted to be responsible for someone else’s disappointment and pain, which was inevitable when it came to him.
“Let me guess, I was on a need-to-know basis and it wasn’t something I needed to know,” she said in a teasing way but he knew beneath it there was true hurt.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely.
He wasn’t just apologizing for not telling her he’d taken dance lessons for seven years; he was apologizing for all of it. Every way he’d let her down and hadn’t been there for her. That was a lot to put into those two words that he’d never actually said to her before because he couldn’t. She’d asked him for an apology more times than he could count, but he’d never given her one. He wasn’t sure if it was his pride, or if it was just his way of protecting himself, or if it was just him being an asshole. But he’d always justified the fact that he’d never apologized to her because she’d cheated on him and left him at the lowest point in his life.
