24. Harlan

24

HARLAN

As I sat on the bench across from the Ferris wheel, music was blasting from the speakers behind me. Suddenly my phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out. As soon as I saw the message, I cursed under my breath. My cover had clearly been blown. Not that I could do anything undercover in this town.

Dawson: I never pegged you for a stalker.

I glanced around, wondering if my friend was at the pier or if someone had tipped him off that I was here. I was about to type back an equally smartass response when AJ rushed up, slightly out of breath.

"Can I borrow twenty dollars?"

"Who's that?" I tipped the top of my beer bottle toward the redhead my godson had been making googly eyes at for the past hour.

When he called after dinner to ask for a ride to hang out at the pier with his friends, I knew something was up. Especially since he had a perfectly good ten-speed and had always used that form of transportation in the past. I pulled up to the front of his house, and when he walked out, the plot thickened. I saw his hair was styled with gel, and he had on a new shirt and pants.

The original plan had been to drop AJ off, but that changed when I remembered that Phil mentioned to Ernie this morning, after we shot the interview, that tonight's date was happening at the pier. Instead of heading back home, I decided to hang out. The decision to stay instead of dropping AJ off had been spur-of-the-moment. One I hadn't thought through. But after our conversation in the field earlier today, I was even more convinced that there was something between us. She was not happy when she thought I'd been on a date with Ariana. That was something.

So, here I was. Sitting on a bench in the middle of the pier. It was prime real estate, tucked between the carnival games and food and drink stands. And it afforded me a front-row view of Daphne on her date with Mark Lyons.

Did that make me a glutton for punishment? Sure.

Did it make me a stalker? No.

Or at least, that's what I was telling myself.

What it did do was allow me to keep an eye on AJ and his friends. My godson hadn't spoken to the redhead since he'd arrived, but thirty seconds hadn't gone by without him glancing in her direction. Which is why I'd asked who she was before coughing up the twenty.

"Who?" AJ feigned ignorance.

"Pink shirt."

Pink Shirt's ears must have been ringing because she turned and looked at AJ before quickly leaning over to her friend, whispering something, and then giggling.

AJ kept his tone and demeanor casual. "Oh, that's Kendall. She just moved to town."

On our ‘date' Ari, or I guess Ariana, had mentioned that she had a daughter named Kendall. "Kendall French?"

AJ's head whipped back at me. "Yeah, do you know her?"

"I know, or knew, her mom."

AJ's face scrunched up like he'd just sucked on a lemon. "Did you guys…"

"No," I quickly assured him. "I knew her when I was in elementary school. She left when we were nine. I hadn't seen her again until the other night."

"Where did you see her? What did you do? What did you talk about?"

AJ rarely asked me questions about my life. He was a typical preteen who was more interested in sports and video games than he was in getting to know his godfather. He clearly had a thing for this girl.

"At The Opera House. We had dinner. We talked about stuff."

I hadn't even told Grandad about Ariana's offer on the farm. In fact, the only person I had told about it was Daphne, which I didn't want to read too much into. But there was no way I was going to tell my pseudo-nephew.

"You went on a date with Kendall's mom ?!" AJ was clearly horrified at the idea that I might be dating the mother of a girl he liked.

"No. Remember the auction? Kendall's mom bid on me."

"That was Kendall's mom?!" AJ's eyes widened. "She paid five Gs to go on a date with you?"

"Yeah, but it wasn't like that. She wanted to discuss… a business opportunity."

"AJ!" Robby, AJ's friend, shouted his name. "Come on!"

"Here you go." I handed the kid a twenty so he could go on rides, and he ran off.

I saw the way Ari's daughter's face lit up when she saw AJ approach. She smiled and dipped her head down coyly. I was glad to see that the first girl my godson had feelings for seemed to be reciprocated.

As I watched the kids, I wondered what it would be like when it was my son or daughter in line for the Ferris wheel. All my life, I'd known I wanted a family. A big family. At least four kids. But the older AJ got, the more I wondered if I would be able to handle that. He wasn't even mine, and I worried about him all the time.

I thought that the hardest years would be when he was a baby, but they weren't. The older he got, the harder it was. Between social media, drugs, mental health issues, his general safety, school, and his friends—it was exhausting.

The bigger his world got, the more scared I got.

"Hey." A deep voice interrupted my inner musings.

I lifted my head and found Dawson staring down at me.

"You plan on stalking her on my date, too?"

"I'm here with AJ." I pointed the beer bottle toward the group of pre-teens who were now standing in line to get tickets for the Ferris wheel.

"Bullshit." Dawson coughed the word into his hand as he lowered down beside me.

I ignored him and scanned the crowd. Without meaning to, my eyes fell on Daphne, who was standing in front of the Clown Balloon Bust game. I watched as Lyons leaned down and whispered something in her ear, and her head fell back as she laughed.

What the fuck had he said?

He wasn't even funny.

She was still laughing when an ocean breeze blew the skirt of her lavender dress up, and Mark quickly held it down, ensuring her modesty. She smiled at him like he was her hero, and I saw her mouth, thank you .

The scene hit me like a wrecking ball to the nutsack. He shouldn't be the one protecting her. I should. I'd always liked Lyons, but right now I wanted to throw him off the end of the pier.

"Holy shit," Dawson whispered beside me.

He spoke so quietly that I had to glance over at him to see if I'd imagined him saying something or if he had actually whispered the two words. When I did, I saw that he was staring at me like I'd just grown a second head.

"What?"

"You are fucked ."

"Thanks," I said dryly as I lifted my beer to him in cheers.

"I'm serious. When I saw you dancing with her at the gala, I knew you liked her, but this…I didn't think you had it this bad."

Not wanting to continue this conversation, I took another sip of my beer and turned my attention back to AJ and his friends, who were now climbing on the Ferris wheel.

"You love her," Dawson claimed.

The statement hung in the air. I didn't respond to it. As much as I wanted to tell him he was full of shit, I remained quiet. Even though I knew there was no way that was possible…I'd only known her a week. So, why wasn't I correcting him?

"What are you going to do about it?" Dawson challenged.

As much as I loved my friend, and appreciated how much he'd been there for me when I lost my dad, when we both lost Austin, and when Meemaw passed, I did not feel like having a Taster's Choice moment with him.

Thankfully, before I had to be a dick and tell him it was none of his fucking business, he got a page to go into the firehouse.

"This conversation isn't over. And please don't show up at the drive-in on Thursday," he requested as he slapped his hand on my shoulder before he stood to leave.

The drive-in, Thursday.

Right.

The girl I might love was on a date with one of my friends and was going on another date to a drive-in movie theater in four days with my best friend.

Yeah. Dawson was right. I was fucked.