Mack Daddy(24)

“That’s right.” He continued, “Before Frankie could open the door, a boy barged his way in. Frankie squinted to see who it was. Turned out, it was Mackenzie Magic, the lead singer of the band. Not only was Frankie embarrassed, but she was starstruck.” He turned the page. “The boy noticed Frankie squinting then looked down and saw her glasses in the bowl. Without thinking twice about it, Mackenzie Magic reached into the toilet, retrieved the glasses, and cleaned them off with soap and water. Not only that, he even joked about it, making Frankie laugh. She never expected that someone as famous as Mackenzie could be so nice. Later that night, he even ended up calling Frankie up on stage during the evening performance. Frankie realized that sometimes help comes from the least likely of places and sometimes—with the right person—a conundrum can turn into something great. The End.”

As the children clapped, Mack’s eyes darted toward me to gauge my reaction. He chuckled when he realized I was smiling. He knew he’d once again brought back a memory for me.

Mack spent the next several minutes discussing the theme of the book with the children.

While he was wrapping up, the mother I’d had my eye on waltzed her way over to him. Clarissa was going in for the kill. Straining my ears through the noise of the class, I struggled to hear what they were saying.

She held out her hand. “Clarissa McIntyre, Ethan’s mom.”

“Mack Morrison, Jonah’s dad. Pleasure to meet you.”

Just seeing her hand in his made my skin crawl.

“I’ve been meaning to look you up in the directory. Ethan’s been telling me how much he’d love a playdate with Jonah sometime.”

“Really? That’s interesting, considering my son generally keeps to himself.”

“They have similar personalities. I think that’s what appeals to Ethan, actually.”

Sure, it does.

She continued, “You’ll have to give me your number. I’ll program it into my phone. Maybe sometime later this week?”

“I’m actually only with Jonah on the weekends. His mother has a nanny who’s with him after school.”

“The weekend would actually work better for us.”

I bet it would. Much better for your purposes.

Mack was non-committal. “Alright, well, maybe.”

“Okay, I’m ready for your number whenever you are.”

She was so pushy. I watched as she entered his digits into her phone.

Mack then walked toward me without saying anything further to her.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

“No, it’s fine. Clearly she’s eager for a playdate.”

He’d picked up on my sarcasm. “I won’t be playing in the sandbox with Clarissa, Frankie.”

“I’m sure she’d love for you to play in her box.”

He seemed amused by my apparent jealousy. “Yeah, well, I won’t be.”

“Thanks for coming in.”

I shivered when he leaned in and whispered in my ear, “When can I spend some time with you again?”

“I don’t know, Mack.”

We just stood there staring at each other for a bit. The look in his eyes this time was different from the other times we had silently connected recently. His eyes were telling me he had a lot of fight left in him. In fact, they were telling me that he hadn’t even begun to fight. He looked like he wanted to say something, but instead, he just turned away, grabbed his coat, and left.

For some reason that night, I just couldn’t stop thinking about him. Well, more so than usual.

While Victor wrapped his arm around me as he drifted off to sleep, something in my bones told me that things in my life were about to get very complicated.





PAST


Mack was leaning against my bureau as I was putting on my earrings. He had his arms crossed and looked preoccupied.

“So, what do you really know about this Emmett?”

“He’s a car dealer now, but he used to be in a Boston-based boy band when he was younger.”

“Are you kidding me? He sounds shady. And cheesy.”

“You don’t even know him. Don’t judge him based on something he used to do. That’s like me judging you for ever thinking about going into politics.”

“I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you did. Politicians are the shadiest—my father included.” Mack let out a deep breath. “Well, at least you’ll be with Moses.”

“Even if I wasn’t, I can take care of myself.”

I didn’t really understand what was happening between Mack and me. All I knew was that with each week that passed, I felt more physically ill each time he’d go home to D.C. to be with Torrie. The jealousy monster had fully overtaken me. Yet, sometimes it was even harder having him around on the weekends, because it would give us more time together. My feelings for him had torpedoed into something that was seriously dangerous for my well-being.

The whole purpose of this date was to break the cycle—a cycle which mostly consisted of obsessing over Mack, fantasizing about Mack, longing for someone I couldn’t have.

At the same time, I cherished his friendship. That made the situation complicated, because I couldn’t seem to give him up.

I truly didn’t know how he really felt about me, but I suspected based on how he was acting tonight, that he was a little jealous. That gave me a thrill and confused me at the same time.