35. By His Side

35

BY HIS SIDE

“ T his is my first birthday party,” Shiloh said almost two weeks later.

“It is?” Dane asked. “I’m glad you can go. There will be a lot of people there though. And your hair looks cute.”

“We donated most of it,” Shiloh said. “It was my first haircut too, but I like it better like this.”

It was between her shoulders and back now. Combed and straight. Looking healthy like the rest of her.

“But you didn’t want to do it at first,” Sloane said. “We had to remind her she could grow it back.”

“I get to meet your family?” Shiloh asked. “I wanted to look nice for that.”

“You do,” he said, rubbing her shoulder. “And they are going to like you whether your hair is short or long. Don’t worry about that.”

“Dad,” Tiffani yelled from her room. She had some lungs on her.

“Sorry,” he said to Sloane. “I’ll be right back.”

Sloane and Shiloh arrived a few minutes ago and they’d be going to his sister’s house for Willow's first birthday party. Chloe had put the pressure on him hard to make sure Sloane and Shiloh attended.

That their parents wanted to meet his girlfriend in an official capacity—which he had been putting off since his mother found out more background on her—and Chloe wanted to meet Shiloh.

But in doing this, the place would be packed with people.

Royce’s family, his family, friends and some coworkers. Coworkers that were like family.

The Fierces.

He’d been told there was no way the Fierces couldn’t be invited.

First, they were the ones who set them up, in a manner of speaking. And second, they were business partners with Royce.

He knew that Diane and Carolyn had been in to see Sloane several times in the past few months and his name had come up, but this was going to be the first time he’d seen them with his girlfriend by his side.

He’d get through it like he always did.

He rounded the corner just as Tiffani shouted his name again and almost blew out his eardrums.

“I’m right here,” he said. “What’s going on?”

Her bed was loaded with clothing. He wanted to grind his teeth. There was no reason for this.

Some was kept here, the rest she’d brought with her. They tried not to have the kids pack too much, but it didn’t work that way anymore with Tiffani. She wanted what she wanted when she wanted it. He supposed that was a combination of being a girl and getting older.

“I don’t know what dress to wear. ”

“I didn’t know you were going to wear a dress,” he said. He didn’t want Shiloh to feel bad. She had jeans on and sneakers. He wasn’t sure Shiloh even owned a dress and wouldn’t ask.

“I thought I should,” Tiffani said, shrugging. “Mom told me to make sure I was the prettiest girl there and that I should wear a dress.”

He knew in his mind this was Mel manipulating things. There had been more than one comment over the past several weeks coming out of Tiffani’s mouth about things that would make her stand out or get his attention. Or maybe put her above Shiloh.

He’d only had the kids together one other night since their first meeting. It hadn’t been easy because he hadn’t had his kids over the weekend for a few weeks and during the week with school, activities and homework, there wasn’t time. He didn’t even see Sloane for a few days either.

He didn’t want to tell Tiffani what to wear if she got it in her head to wear a dress, but he’d try to use some logic if he could.

“You know Uncle Royce built a swing set for Willow for her birthday, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” Tiffani said.

“Do you want to be climbing on it in a dress? You might get scratched up or dirty a pretty dress. You’d have to put shorts on under it too so you aren’t flashing anyone. And wear sneakers. Sneakers do look cute with dresses, but do you have the right sneakers to wear with any of these?”

Tiffani’s jaw dropped as if she couldn’t believe he thought of that or maybe she hadn’t.

She stomped her foot. “No,” she said. “Mom told me to bring shoes with the dresses.”

“I’m wearing jeans,” he said. “I think everyone will have jeans on, but I know you like to be different. How about we look in your closet and see what else you could wear if you don’t have the right sneakers?”

“I want to wear jeans like you,” Tiffani said. “Do I have a blue shirt like you too?”

She was rushing to her closet to look. He held his smile in place and then started to pick up the dresses that she’d brought with her and folded them to pack up in a few days.

“Did you find anything?” he asked, standing there.

“I like this shirt,” Tiffani said. “It’s blue with a heart on it.”

“It is,” he said. “Do you know what pants you want to wear? How about these brown ones?”

“Nope,” she said, pulling the brown cotton pants out of his hand. “I want jeans too.”

“You know where your jeans are then,” he said. “Can I go back downstairs?”

“Yes,” Tiffani said. “Are Sloane and Shiloh here?”

“They arrived a minute before you summoned me up here.”

Tiffani giggled. “I didn’t summon you up here, but maybe I should have asked Sloane. She’s a woman. She understands fashion more.”

“I think I did a good job,” he said, lifting his chin and making his daughter giggle again. Another crisis averted.

“Is Tiffani dressed yet?” Tyler asked. “I want to go.”

“We’ll go soon,” he said. “We’ve got time.”

“Mom kept telling her to bring more dresses,” Tyler said. “It was annoying to keep waiting for her to pack.”

He wasn’t going to address any of this. Mel dropped the kids off this morning and he found it odd there was a bigger bag of clothing but would never question those things.

“You know how Tiffani can be,” he said .

“It wasn’t her,” Tyler argued. “She didn’t want to bring a dress. She wanted to leave and Mom made her pack a few and shoes. Said she had to make sure she was the prettiest girl on your arm today.”

He took a deep breath and let it out and turned to see Sloane watching.

He was going to have to deal with this soon with his ex. He’d bitten his tongue and not said a word weeks ago about Mel’s comment over Tiffani checking her toys.

Years of him helping her with her boyfriends and Mel was doing everything she could to use their kids to make his life hell with Sloane.

Not hell, that was wrong.

Just difficult.

If Mel had an issue with him, then she should talk to him. Keep the kids out of it. He was more upset that his ex was using the kids this way and hadn’t expected that.

“I’ve got three pretty girls on my arm today,” he said. “I think I’m one lucky guy.”

“I’m not pretty?” Tyler asked.

His son looked confused. “You’re handsome,” Sloane said. “I think I’m a lucky girl to have two handsome men on my arm.”

“I like you, Sloane,” Tyler said, running to her and giving her a high five. “My mom never says I’m handsome. She says I’m a cutie. I don’t want to be a cutie. That’s for kids.”

“But we are kids,” Shiloh said.

“I’m ready,” Tiffani said, running into the room. His daughter was in dark jeans, the sneakers that she kept here and a different shirt than the one she’d shown him. This one was still blue but long sleeved and had a cat face on the front .

“I like your shirt,” Shiloh said to Tiffani. “I like cats. We don’t have any pets. Do you?”

“No,” Tiffani said. “Thank you for liking my shirt. I like yours too. I want one of those flannel shirts, but Mom said no. That only boys wear them. I don’t think so. Dad, can I have one like Shiloh’s? But I’d get a different color because I don’t want to get our shirts confused.”

Shiloh’s T-shirt was black. Just a solid color, but she had a button-down open flannel shirt over it that was like a light jacket. It was black and white plaid.

He held his smile back there too, because in her way, Tiffani complimented Shiloh on her clothing choices.

“I picked this shirt out myself,” Shiloh said. “Sloane took me shopping and said I could get what I wanted. I’ve never had that before.”

“Really?” Tiffani said. “Mom picks my clothes out. I don’t mind sometimes, but Dad lets me get what I want too.”

“If you want a shirt like Shiloh’s I think we can order one while you’re here. I think it’s nice and looks good on Shiloh. You can keep it here if you want so your mother doesn’t get upset.”

“I don’t care if she’s upset,” Tiffani said. “Why can’t I have my own style at times?”

“I think this is a conversation for another day,” he said. “But when you are with me, you can pick out your own clothes. You know that.”

Tiffani hugged him. “Thank you, Dad.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Can we go now ?” Tyler asked.

The five of them left and got in his SUV. After five minutes of the kids talking in the backseat, Tiffani asked, “Can Shiloh spend the night?”

This shocked him. Though the two girls got along much better the second time they were together, he wasn’t forcing anything. It had to happen naturally or it was going to cause issues again.

Though he did have to admit the past few weeks Tiffani had been asking a lot of questions about Shiloh and Sloane. Nice questions. Things that let him know his daughter was warming up to everything more and remorseful over how she acted the first time.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” he said. “But that is a question for Sloane.”

He and Sloane hadn’t planned on that. She hadn’t spent the night once when he had his kids though Shiloh had stayed at his house a few times. Times when Sloane had to work late and he was home. He’d watch Shiloh and then Sloane would come over after work and they’d leave together in the morning if it was during the week. Most times it was on the weekends though.

“Do you want to?” Sloane asked Shiloh. “We don’t have any clothes here and would have to go home and get some, but it’s up to you.”

“I’d like to,” Shiloh said.

“Yay!” Tiffani said. “I’ll sleep on the top bunk if you don’t like heights and you can sleep on the bottom bunk. You’re my first friend spending the night at Dad’s. I get to use my bunks now.”

He hadn’t realized that. Tiffani had never asked for a friend to spend the night before.

When he looked in the rearview mirror he saw Shiloh’s shy smile over being included.

“I guess it’s settled then,” he said. “We can stop and get stuff when we leave Chloe’s.”

“Then you can see my room,” Shiloh said. “I’ve never had my own room before and Sloane let me decorate this the way I wanted. We painted it yellow and I’ve got bright rainbows and sun decorations on the walls and my bedspread is aqua.”

“Mine too,” Tiffani said excitedly. “The one at my Mom’s. Aqua is my new favorite color.”

Which he didn’t know and didn’t care either. Every week Tiffani changed her mind on her favorite color. He could barely keep up with her food choices let alone color decisions.

What he was more concerned about was the fact that his daughter was treating Shiloh like a friend and not an obligation.

“Can I have a friend spend the night?” Tyler asked. “It’s not fair. Shiloh should be my friend. We are the same age and in the same grade.”

Oh boy. He didn’t see this one coming.

“We’ll talk about it another time,” he said to Tyler. “Right now we are here and can enjoy the party.”

He parked in the road, as there were a ton of cars already.

“Are we late?” Tiffani asked.

“Not late,” he said. “But it took someone a long time to find the right outfit.”

His daughter laughed. “I had to look just right,” Tiffani said.

The kids got out of the back of his SUV. Tiffani grabbed Shiloh’s hand and pulled her to the backyard along with Tyler, leaving Dane and Sloane to walk in that way with the gifts.

“Sorry to put you on the spot like that,” he said.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Maybe I wouldn’t mind spending the night either.”

“There is that,” he said. He threaded their fingers together for a second. “Today might get crazy with some nosy people.”

“You forget I deal with the public daily too. And I’ve met your mother. She seems like a lovely woman.”

He laughed. “Not sure about that. You’ll meet her in another capacity today. But you will know some of the people here.”

“I’m sure I’ll know more than some,” she said. “If the Fierces know them, they most likely have been to my spa at one point or another.”

“Speaking of the Fierces,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, laughing. “You know I’ve been handling it my way.”

“Yeah, but today they will come to me, I know it.”

She bumped her hip to his. “You can handle it too. Remember, they won’t be targeting you because you’re already in a relationship.”

“One I’m sure they are going to try to take credit for.”

“Who cares if they do,” she said. “We know the truth.”

“Dane,” Carolyn said to him within ten minutes of walking into the backyard. She figured that they might as well circle around him now and then catch up later on when the party was winding down.

“Carolyn,” he said. “Diane. Nice to see you both.”

“You look like a nice blended family,” she said. “It was sweet to see the girls come running in together.”

“They get along well,” he said. “I couldn’t ask for much more than that.”

“No,” Diane said. “You really can’t.”

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said. “My mother is waving me over. I need to make sure she gets a proper introduction to Sloane. My father hasn’t met her yet either.” Dane was swiveling his head around. “I’ve got to round up Shiloh too.”

“Don’t worry,” Carolyn said. “When the girls came running in, Tiffani pulled Shiloh to your parents and introduced her new friend, then they took off for the swing set Royce built.”

Carolyn saw the kids climbing on the massive structure in the backyard.

“I guess I can let them go for now. I’m sure I’ll be talking to you some more.”

When Dane walked away, Diane said, “I told you that we should have given him time to get settled first.”

“Nope,” she said. “We can gauge things at the end of the party too. Besides, you and I were going to talk to Doreen today. Keep your eyes on things. I’m pretty sure our suspicions are true, but it’d be nice to see everyone in action in the same place.”

“What are you two women doing?” Garrett asked.

“Just talking,” she said to her husband.

“More like scheming,” Grant said. “Give it up, this one happened on its own.”

“Nope,” Diane said. “We’ve been name dropping for months. Months prior to them getting together. We can take some credit.”

“Though I don’t think we are the ones that deserve the credit,” she said.

“What does that mean?” her husband asked.

“We’ll know more at the end of the day. Maybe,” Diane said, laughing. “Now if you two men will excuse us, we’ve got some mingling to do.”