I slam my mug on the kitchenette table and stumble to my feet. Hannah eyes me in alarm.
“What’s wrong?” I demand. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“I just told you not to worry, didn’t I?” God, sometimes I really want to kill my father. “I took a little spill this afternoon, that’s all. Thought I might have broken my arm, so I called an ambulance.”
Fear pummels into me. “Oh my gosh. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he says firmly. “It’s just a sprained wrist. No broken bones, I promise.” A sarcastic note creeps in. “I can ask the hospital to send you copies of my X-rays if you’d like.”
I clench my teeth. “Don’t be a jerk, Daddy.”
He sighs heavily in my ear. “I’m sorry. I just knew you’d overreact when I told you. I promise you, sweetheart, I’m fine. My wrist is a little sore, but I have my pain meds.”
“How did you get home from the hospital?”
“Taxi. And now I’m lying on the couch watching the Hawkeyes game.”
I inhale a slow, calming breath. “Okay. Don’t walk around. Don’t try to lift anything heavy. Please, Dad, just take it easy for a couple days.”
“I will. Love you, AJ.”
“Love you too.” I hang up and turn to Hannah, who instantly asks, “Is your dad okay?”
I nod. “So he says.” But Dad was a hockey player. Hockey players always say they’re okay, even when they’re bleeding from their ears and spitting their broken teeth at your feet.
I take another deep breath. Then I pull up Dean’s number and press send.
*
Dean
Joe Hayes answers the door with the biggest, meanest scowl I’ve ever seen on another human male.
“You’ve got to be kidding me! She sent you over to check on me?”
I gently touch his shoulder to move him out of the way. God knows he won’t be inviting me in. “Yup,” I confirm. Then I walk inside and look around.
Fortunately, nothing seems amiss. I glance at the stairs—Allie told me over the phone that Joe had taken a “spill”. There’s no blood on the hardwood, no broken floorboards. That’s good. And he’s not sporting any bruises or visible injuries. He’s using the cane, but he looks steadier on his feet than the last time I saw him.
“Please don’t tell me you got on a plane and flew all the way here just to give me the onceover,” he mutters.
“No. I was already in the city visiting my folks and brother.”
Mr. Hayes settles on the sofa and proceeds to ignore me.
I take off my jacket and drape it over the back of the armchair. Then I sit down.
He balks. “What are you doing?”
“Getting comfortable.” I raise a brow. “Didn’t I mention? I’m spending the night.”
“Like hell you are!”
His outrage makes me chuckle. “Come on, sir. I thought we already established that arguing with your daughter is pointless. She asked me to stay the night and keep an eye on you, so that’s what I’m doing.” Because I will do anything that woman asks. I’d sell my soul to the devil himself if Allie told me to do it.
“I don’t like this,” Mr. Hayes grumbles.
“I don’t care,” I say cheerfully.
And that’s how I wind up watching college football with Joe Hayes for the next hour. It’s almost nine o’clock now, and my stomach is grumbling. I hadn’t eaten dinner, and Mr. Hayes doesn’t object when I order a pizza. “Sausage and bacon okay?” I ask him as I place the order.
He grunts. I guess that means yes.
Another hour passes. We don’t talk. We scarf down pizza, drink beer, and switch from football to hockey. The Bruins are playing tonight. Every time we shout at the screen or cheer for a goal, we glance at each other warily afterward, as if remembering who we’re with.
Between the second and third period I put down my beer and say, “I love your daughter, sir.”
And he says, “I know you do, pretty boy.”
I don’t know if that’s acceptance, or if it’s a ‘yeah you love her but I still hate you.’ I decide to treat it as the former.
Around eleven, I help him up the stairs and wait outside his bedroom door, listening to him wander around and change for bed. Then I knock. “You all right in there?” I call out.
“I’m fucking fine. Go to bed.”
Chuckling to myself, I duck into Allie’s childhood room, where Joe said I could crash in tonight. First thing I notice? The scent. Holy shit, it’s the scent. The mysterious fragrance that’s always surrounding Allie and that I can never place.
I wander over to her dresser and pick up a small vial of perfume. Or at least I think it’s perfume. The label is pale-blue and reads “Allie” in a pretty script font. What the fuck?
“Eva had it made for her.”
I jump in surprise, turning to find Mr. Hayes standing in the doorway wearing nothing but plaid boxers. I can’t help but gape at his chest. Dude’s in his late forties and suffering from MS, and he’s rocking a six-pack. I’m impressed. I guess that explains how he landed Allie’s smokin’ hot model mom. Shit, and it suddenly occurs to me that if this is how Allie’s dad looks now, she’s got expectations. I’m going to have to look forward to working out for the rest of my life.
At my blank look, he gestures to the perfume bottle in my hand. “My wife…AJ’s mom…she had a friend in France, this fruity-tooty fashion designer she worked with once. He knew a perfumer—is that what you call ’em? Perfumers?”
“I have no idea, sir.”
“Anyway, Eva’s friend gave her perfume one year, a scent made especially for Eva. AJ was green with envy, so for her twelfth birthday, Eva told her she was getting a special perfume for her too. My wife was sick at that point, real sick, so she was doing everything she could to make AJ happy. She asked AJ what scent she wanted, and AJ says—” he snorts in amusement “—strawberries and roses.”
I laugh too, because now it makes total sense why I could never figure it out. Roses and strawberries. Two completely different fragrances, yet somehow, when combined, they work. They’re Allie.
“She got six vials made. I think AJ might be down to three? I’m not sure. She’s very stingy with that shit. Doesn’t want it to run out, I guess.”