A Mother's Homecoming(63)
“Sorry about that,” Pam said as she smoothed the girl’s hair. “Next time, I promise. You can come back tomorrow if it’s all right with your father. I guess we just got too caught up with everything else.”
“Evening, Julia.” Nick smiled at Pam’s aunt, glad that the two women had finally formed a strong family bond. Pam deserved to have that in her life. He never lost sight of the fact that he’d been blessed in that respect, even on days when his mother or sister exasperated the hell out of him.
Julia inclined her head. “Nick, always nice to see you. Thanks for letting us borrow your beautiful daughter for the afternoon. She’s been quite a help.”
Faith lifted her chin, adopting a self-important expression. “I’m in jewelry design now. Maybe someday I’ll have my own accessory line.”
He arched an eyebrow. “What happened to NASA?”
“Oh, Father.” She rolled her eyes. “I plan to do both. Duh.”
Pam tried to smother a laugh, and he glanced toward her, meeting her gaze, recognizing the same pride in her expression that welled within him. Our daughter, the jewelry-designing aeronautics engineer. He was the luckiest damn man alive.
Faith scooped up her backpack from where it sat on the floor next to the couch. “So I’ll see you both again tomorrow?”
“It will have to be later because I work until five tomorrow,” Pam said, “but it’s okay with me if it’s okay with your dad. You have to get your homework done first, though.”
“Deal!” She spun around, pinning Nick with wide, beseeching eyes. “It’s okay with you, right, Dad?”
“Sure. You guys seemed like you were having a good time.”
Faith’s eyes twinkled, a merry gold today. “Pam was telling us about this one time when you were fourteen and wanted to go to the mall and get your ear pierced because you thought it would make you cool, but Grandma Gwendolyn said absolutely not, and you asked Pam to try to pierce it for you.”
Nick groaned. “Pamela Jo! You’re supposed to tell her only the stories about how well I listened to my parents and how dedicated I was to my academic career.”
Pam grinned at him. “I see. I’ll try to come up with one of those stories for next time. But off the top of my head, I can’t seem to recall …”
“Come along, Faith,” he said with mock severity. “We have to be going now.”
His daughter whistled Beethoven all the way to the car, which made him think that Aunt Julia had been the one who got to pick the background music for their jewelry-making session.
“So, good afternoon?” Nick asked as they both got buckled.
“Stupendous day! You will not even believe what happened at school after you visited me, Daddy.” His daughter was positively vibrating with giddy excitement. “Right after you left!”
Nick had been relieved that she’d been pleased by his unannounced presence at lunch. He thought that even her world-weary friend Morgan had looked a bit wistful. Maybe Morgan wasn’t such a rotten kid; her family had been ripped apart by an ugly divorce, which probably amplified her attitude.
“What happened?” he asked dutifully.
“He asked me! Bryce actually asked me!”
“Should I know this Bryce?” Nick hoped he didn’t sound as panicked as he felt. Bryce who? Asked her what? I’ll kill him. Apparently all fathers possessed a dormant homicidal gene that didn’t make itself known until some boy asked their daughter for something. Please, God, let it have been to borrow her pencil.
“Bryce Watkins. I’ve liked him ever since he was my lab partner when we had to dissect earthworms.”
Ah, young love.
“And he asked me to the autumn social! He actually asked me.”
“That’s wonderful, honey. You seem pretty jazzed up about this.”
“Yeah, you have no idea how hard it was not to spill the beans this afternoon! I wanted to tell Pam,” she said. “But I wanted to tell you first.”
Nick’s throat tightened at the gesture. He knew it must have required monumental effort for a twelve-year-old girl not to share the news of a big crush asking her on a date. Date? The enormity of the event hit him. Her first date. He had a sharp pain in his abdomen that probably signaled an ulcer.
“I can’t wait to tell Pam,” Faith enthused. “You think she can help me pick out a dress? No offense, but I bet she’s better at it than you.”