“You’re falling in love with him?” he asks.
I want to lie to him. I want to lie to myself, but the truth is I know that I’m quickly falling over the edge with Clay, and I don’t think there is anything I can do to stop it from happening.
“Yes,” I whisper and his jaw clenches. “I don’t know how he feels about me, I don’t know if he feels like I do, I don’t know what will happen a week or a year from now, but I do know that in this moment I’m trusting him to catch me if I fall.”
“Shit.” Bax mumbles from my side.
But I don’t take my eyes off our dad’s.
“All right, kid,” he says softly.
My throat gets tight. I might not have his approval, but I do have his acceptance and that is more than I expected to have from him.
“Thank you,” I say softly, and he reaches across the table with his tattoo-covered hand, and I take it like I have since I was little and likely will until the day I have to say goodbye to him.
“Now, tell me what you know about your friend.” He gives my fingers a squeeze and I let his hand go and sit back against the booth behind me.
Then for the next hour and a half, while we eat, I fill him and my brother in about Carly, Matthew and what has happened over the last week. And when I leave the restaurant and get back in my car, I feel more at ease then I have in days because like always, I know my father and my family will be in my corner no matter what happens.
_______________
SITTING ON THE couch in my living room with my computer on my lap, and my cell phone in my hand, I bite my bottom lip as I stare at the password box on Carly’s email. Since I got home an hour ago, I’ve accumulated a dozen potential passwords for her account from the information on her resume and what I knew of her. But I have yet to try any of them. Like all websites now days, I know I only have a limited number of tries before I’m locked out for good, and I do not want to risk that happening.
Checking the time on the clock I see that I have about two hours before I need to leave to head to Clay’s place. After telling him that I spoke with Annie, he wanted me to come right to him after brunch, but I told him when I was leaving the restaurant that I had stuff to do around my place, which wasn’t a total lie. Besides trying to break into Carly’s account, I need to catch up on laundry, run down to the mailboxes to see if there is anything there, then clean up since Leah will be home in a few days.
Holding my breath, I type in my first password option then click enter and almost instantly it kicks me back to the sign in page to try again. After the fourth try with no success I close my eyes. The chance of this working is almost impossible, and although I knew that it’s even more apparent now. Looking at the screen, I pull up the dating app and my eyes land on the sign up now link. I haven’t used this dating app, but I’m familiar with others just like it. Rubbing my lips together, I hit the sign-up button and start to fill in the information required. It doesn’t take long at all for my account to be approved and once I’m on their site, I search for Carly’s profile. Once I find it, I start to look through her photos and my throat gets tight when I come across one of her with two little boys and a woman who I bet is Annie. When I slide to the next picture, I smile at the photo she and I had taken at dinner one evening a couple months ago. Then I laugh when I slide to the next picture, I forgot that she, Becca, and Indigo had dressed up like bunnies one day for work before Easter.
After saving the pictures to my computer I try to see if there is a way to find out who she had been matched with but there isn’t.
Exiting out of her profile I begin searching for Matthew, but not knowing his last name, it’s going to take me a while to get through all the men with the same name. Not to mention he could go by a different name, so I might as well be searching for the lost ark. After thirty minutes with no luck, I hear the buzzer for the dryer go off. I set my stuff aside and head for the laundry room. As I’m folding up the last of my stuff from the dryer there is a knock on the door, so I leave everything as is and head across the apartment. I don’t know who I expect to see when I look through the peephole but it’s Clay.