The Friendship List(25)

“You stay. I insist,” he said, releasing her and stepping back.

He kissed Dagmar’s cheek again, then let himself out. As he walked to his car, he told himself that when he got back to Bellevue he would work out for an hour, get to bed early and start fresh in the morning. There were several billion people in the world and at least half of them were women. Surely he could find one, just one, who was the right one for him. Or at least semiright or half-right. At this point, he wasn’t looking for a miracle, he just wanted a good woman to love and a couple of kids. Even if lately, that had felt like wishing for the moon.

  Keith walked in his house and threw his keys into the basket on the table by the back door. The bus he was taking on the college road trip had been serviced and declared ready for the twenty-four-hundred-mile journey. He didn’t want to jinx anything, but he had a feeling he was just about ready.

He walked into the family room and saw Lissa curled up on the sofa, reading. In the second before she looked up and acknowledged him, he took a moment to deal with the reality that his baby girl was growing up.

She’d turned seventeen two months ago and she was about to be a senior in high school. Gone were the gap-toothed smile and the pigtails. In their place were short-shorts and a young woman who looked closer to thirty than ten. It wasn’t anything he was happy about, but he’d yet to figure out a way to stop time.

He crossed to where she was on the sofa and took a seat on the coffee table in front of her. Reluctantly, she put down her book and stared at him.

“Hi,” he said pointedly.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Whatcha reading?”

She held up a paperback with a kissing couple on the cover. “Want it when I’m done?”

He recoiled. “No, thanks.”

She smiled. “You sure? Maybe you could learn a few moves.”

He ignored that. “The bus is ready for the trip. You have everything you need?”

She sighed heavily. “It’s a road trip, Dad. I don’t need anything special.”

“But you’ll be visiting the colleges we’re stopping at. Walking around campus, getting a feel for them.”

“Dad, you’re making this more than it is. I’m fine.”

“Which of the colleges are you most interested in? UCLA? University of Oregon?”

Her brown eyes, the same color as his, glazed over. “I have no idea.”

“But there must be one you want to see.”

“Not really.”

She’d been like this for a while, he thought, frustrated by her lack of interest in college. “Lissa, you’re going to be a senior. College applications go out in the fall. So far you haven’t mentioned one school that you like, you won’t talk about your major, nothing. What’s going on?”

She shifted so her feet were flat on the floor. “Why are you pushing me? What’s the big deal? It’s just college, Dad. I’ll get there, but not with you in my face, every second of every day.”

“I’m not in your face.”

“You’re sitting less than two feet from me. What would you call it?”

“I’m curious and supportive. Lissa, what’s going on? You know you’re going to have to make some decisions about your future. You’re not going to be in high school forever. At some point you have to grow up and take responsibility for yourself.”

“And you can’t wait for that, can you?” she snapped, coming to her feet. “You’re just like those birds that push their babies out of the nest. You know what, Dad? Sometimes the babies can’t fly. Sometimes they crash to the ground and they die.”

With that horrific image, she stalked out of the room, down the hall and slammed her bedroom door behind her.

Keith held in a groan. Lately it seemed all his conversations with her were going off the rails and he had no idea why. Was it him? Was it her? Was it a generic teenage thing?

He rubbed his face wishing he were doing a better job at raising a teenage daughter. Maybe if Becky lived closer. But his ex-wife was still in Missoula and had very little contact with Lissa.

Keith shifted to the sofa and leaned his head back. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he thought. He’d married Becky with the best of intentions. Okay, sure, she’d been pregnant, but he’d been happy about that. Maybe that had forced them to rush things, but he’d been in love with her.

Keith had been drafted by the NFL out of the University of Oklahoma. His five-year career had been spent with him mostly on the bench, as a backup quarterback. He’d had a couple of great games, but not the career he’d hoped for. When his contract hadn’t been renewed, he’d transitioned to coaching at a small college in Montana.

He and Becky had divorced almost immediately. They’d coparented Lissa until Becky had remarried, once again pregnant before the wedding. After the first of two kids had been born, he’d taken on more and more responsibility for their daughter.

Five years ago, he’d been looking for a different kind of challenge when he’d been offered the athletic director position at Birchly High School. He’d thought Becky would fight him on the move, but she’d immediately agreed to give him sole custody of Lissa. At the time he’d worried his daughter would feel rejected by her mother, but she’d seemed happy with the relocation and had settled in nicely.