“Me either,” Haley agrees.
“I don’t want to date you. I want to sleep with you.” Penn smiles triumphantly. “Let me know what day works for you.”
“The sixth Sunday of the month. I’ll sleep with you on the sixth Sunday of the month.” Haley rolls her eyes. “Now, back to the person who is getting laid.”
“I think you misunderstand my enthusiasm for sleeping with you as I’m not getting laid.” He leans toward her, smirking. “I promised to be practiced up when you call.”
“Penn, I’m not calling. Not now. Not ever.”
In typical Penn fashion, he shrugs like he doesn’t care. He leans back in his chair and looks at me. “Does all this jabbering mean things are going good with you and Miss New York?”
“There are days I hate you,” I tell him. “Today is one of them.”
“Why? I just asked a question.”
“Why don’t you get a coffee or whatever it is you came here for and get to the jobsite before you get fired?” I ask. “And tell Matt to have the lumber taken off the pallets before I get there.”
Penn stands up. “Fine. But let me point out this morning that there are days when I think you really are your father’s son. Today is one of them.”
“Go to hell.” I chuckle.
“See ya up there,” he tells me. “See ya later, Haley.”
“Goodbye.”
Once Penn’s gone, Claire comes over again. “He drives me insane.”
“Penn? He drives us all insane,” Haley notes. “What did he do to you?”
“We have this friends-with-benefits thing going on, as you all know. Well, he stood me up last night, and I found out he was with Brittney. Can you believe that?”
“Yes,” Haley and I say in unison.
Claire shakes her head. “I’m cutting him off. If I want a booty call, I’ll call someone else. He’s not that good.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that,” I kid. “He’ll feel like he has to prove a point.”
She rolls her eyes but watches as he pulls out of the parking lot. “Asshole,” she grumbles before turning back to the kitchen.
I sip my coffee while Haley checks her phone. She’s not used to having a couple of extra hours in the morning. Dad grabbed Mia early for a day of koi shopping, which thrilled my daughter to no end.
As the hot liquid wakes me up, it becomes clearer how I feel. And what I want. And what I need to consider.
“What are you thinking?” Haley asks, bringing me out of my haze. She points at me. “You have that la-la land look on your face that scares me.”
“Do you think Mia is happy?” I ask her.
“Definitely. Happier lately than usual, even. Why?”
All the pieces of my life come together into one cohesive puzzle in my heart. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’ve identified all the sections of my life and have them all within my grasp. I almost can’t believe it.
“Dane . . .”
“Let me ask you a girl question,” I say, setting down my drink. “If you didn’t want to be serious with a guy, you wouldn’t spend a lot of time with them, right?”
Haley grins.
“Like, you wouldn’t have dinner with him and his kid. Help tuck the kid in. Fix her hair. That kind of thing. You wouldn’t do all that unless you saw a future with them. Does that sound legit?”
“Totally.” She lays a hand on mine. “Mia aside, I’ve never seen you this happy. In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you like this. It makes me wonder if the Dane I knew before all this was really just a shell of you.”
“I am happier. I wake up and don’t just think about Mia and what she needs for the day. For once, there’s something there just for me. That probably sounds selfish, but it’s true.”
“Selfish?” She laughs. “No. It sounds like you’re a man with needs and you’ve found someone that might meet them.”
“I just keep thinking what it would be like for us to wake up in the same house. For Mia to have a mother-like figure in her life—no offense, Haley. We love you.”
She holds up her hands. “No offense taken. That’s a job I don’t want. You know that. I will give that girl whatever she needs, but I’d rather not take on the duties of a parent. Besides, she needs someone in her corner. I’m not around all the time.”
Nodding, I sip my coffee again. “I need to figure out a way to keep her here.”
Haley cheers, then clamps a hand over her mouth. “Yay,” she whispers.
“You’re nuts.” I throw a tip on the table and head to the front. I toss a ten-dollar bill on the counter and take the bag with my name spelled out across the front. “Thanks, Claire,” I call out to her in the back.
“See ya, Dane.”
As I walk by the round table by the door, I pause. “Thanks for listening, Haley.”
“It’s why you pay me the big bucks.”
With a spring in my step, I head into the warm summer air with a head full of ideas.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
NEELY
Madison! Point your toes!” I call out as she lands her tumbling pass. “No. Do it again.” Jogging over to her, I put a hand on her shoulder. “You can do better than that. Remember—you perform like you practice. Habits are built here, when you’re doing it for yourself and no one is watching.” I work my head side to side. “Except I’m watching, and you have to do it again.”
She sighs, but smiles. “Okay. I’ll try again.”
“Good girl.”
I get out of her way and watch as she readies herself at the opposite end of the room. She inhales and then sprints a few feet and begins her tumbling pass. This time, as she flips through the air, everything is nearly perfect.
“Great job,” I tell her as she looks my way. “Very, very good, Madison. I knew you could do it.”
“Thanks, Neely.”
The girls work in little groups, each focused on a certain element Aerial feels they could improve on. I love the team-building aspect of the groups. It lets the girls see they aren’t the only ones struggling in an area.
After surveying the practice pods, as Aerial calls them, I head to the water fountain for a quick drink and almost run into Aerial herself.
“Hey, you,” she says. “I heard you yelling at Madison. I’m glad you did that because that second pass was awesome.”
“You’ve got a great group of kids here. They take criticism well. They work hard. They have positive attitudes, for the most part.”
“Come into my office for a second, will you?”
I follow her inside and lean against the wall. “What’s up?”
She fights with the words she wants to use. “I know you said your heart isn’t here.”
I shift my weight back and forth. That was certainly true when I said it at a time that feels like a lifetime ago. My heart was very much rooted in New York then. Now? I’m not so sure.
“If you ever wanted to stick around,” Aerial says, “I’d love to talk to you about taking over the gym.”
“What?” I ask, shoving off the wall. “What are you saying?”
“I’m getting old. I still love the kids and will always want to be a part of the learning environment here. I don’t think I could exist if I didn’t. But there are lots of days, Neely, where I don’t want to deal with the rest of it.” Her shoulders sag. I can see the exhaustion, the years of worry and wear written on her face. “But what do I do? I’ve spent my entire life building this gym. We have the Summer Show that’s basically a tourist attraction for the whole town at this point. We have the competitions in the winter that keep a lot of little girls, and some boys, working hard and staying out of trouble. I don’t want to walk away and just shut this place down. I’ve worked way too hard at it for way too long to do that.”
I look at the floor, trying to replay that through my mind. “You want to retire?” I ask. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m saying I want to walk away in a large way. But I want to hand this place off to someone who will love it and care for it as much as I do. And honestly, you’re the only person who will do that.”
“Aerial, I’m flattered,” I say, still unsure if I’m hearing this right. “But I can’t take over the gym.”
“Why?”
“I’m honored, Aerial. Truly. This is your baby, and for you to think I could do it justice, even partially, is one of the nicest things to ever happen to me.” I stop talking and look at her again. “I’ll think about it. I’ll see what I can do. But I still have a lot of irons in the fire up north, and I’m not convinced that’s not where I should be.”
“But you aren’t convinced you should be either.”
Glancing around the room, I see the trophies from years gone by. I see the pictures from teams and students and handwritten letters sitting in frames. All of that is nice, but that isn’t what Aerial is asking me to take over. She’s asking me to take over the heart and soul of the gym.
My mind floats to my apartment in the city and all the things there. If I go back, I’m going back to things. A job. A subway pass. A rack of shoes I can barely afford because rent is so freaking high.
I’m not going back there for the heart and soul of the place. Maybe that means something.
Maybe it means something, too, that when I think of my life there, it feels shallow. There’s no color like in Dane’s house, no laughter like at the gym. It’s a bleak, monotonous life that isn’t as appealing to me as it once was.
“I won’t keep you waiting long,” I promise. “I have a lot to think about.”
“Absolutely. I’m honored you’d consider it, Neely.”
I pull her into a big hug before letting her go.