Perfect for You (Short Story) (Fire and Icing) Read Free

personality had…faded with time.
    Either faded, or been trampled by marriage to a person who didn’t appreciate her.
    Trent knew how it felt to work so hard to make a marriage work only to learn your best efforts and all your love weren’t enough. But in the past three years, he’d recovered his confidence. He knew he had a lot to offer and that someday he’d meet a woman who appreciated him. Even his recent string of bad luck with the opposite sex couldn’t shatter that belief, but Dawn…
    He could tell she hadn’t recovered from whatever factors had combined to dim the light in her eyes, and it made him want to track Dave down and punch him in the gut. Hard.
    “This look good?’ Dawn asked, pausing in front of a bar with an old-fashioned wooden sign hanging above the door declaring it to be the Pied Piper Pub and Grill.
    “Perfect.” He held the door open for her, following her into the soft darkness.
    Out on the street, the summer sun was still setting, but inside the pub, the shades were closed and the lamps hanging from the ceiling cast a warm glow above the tables on the right side of the room and the long, wooden bar on the other. It gave the space a cozy, close feeling, and the Irish fiddle music piping over the sound system wasn’t too loud. It would be a good place to catch up, and maybe…
    Don’t go there. Take this one step at a time.
    Trent took a breath. One step at a time was good advice. Dawn was obviously still getting used to the idea that he wasn’t a nineteen-year-old meathead who’d never been out of Trousdale County anymore, and he didn’t know if Dawn was still the same person he remembered.
    “Tell me more about your daughter,” she said, after they’d ordered two beers and a basket of cheese fries to help balance the doughnut sweetness.
    “She’s six,” Trent said. “Going on sixteen.”
    Dawn smiled. “Did she just finish kindergarten?”
    “First grade,” Trent said, moving the used coasters in front of him to the side, clearing a space for their drinks. “She was already reading and writing by the time she started kindergarten, so her teachers went ahead and moved her up to first grade. She’ll be in second next year.”
    Dawn’s brows lifted. “Smart girl. Did your ex teach her to read?”
    “I did,” Trent said, determined to prove to Dawn that he wasn’t a meathead anymore.
    “My ex worked at a bank when Beatrice was born, and we didn’t have a whole lot of money for childcare,” he said. “So Bea would come hang out at the bike shop with me. She had tons of toys in the back room, but she’d still get bored and want me to read to her. A lot of times I was with a client and couldn’t get away, so I started teaching her to read on her own. She was getting by with a little help by three. By the time she was four, she didn’t need me anymore. She’s a really sharp kid.”
    “Sounds like it,” Dawn said, lips curving. “And sounds like she’s got a devoted daddy.”
    Trent shrugged. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
    Dawn’s smile crimped at the edges. “I can tell you mean that. My ex…” She shook her head. “You know what? I don’t want to talk about my ex.”
    “Me either,” Trent said. “But I will say I always thought you were way too good for Dave.”
    Her brows lifted. “Really?”
    “Really. Way too smart and pretty and full of energy to be lugging that pot-head around for the rest of your life. I bet he only slowed you down.”
    Dawn shot him a strange look, but the bartender took that moment to deliver their beers and basket of fries. By the time he’d asked them if they needed anything else and delivered the napkins and forks Dawn asked for, the look had vanished and Trent didn’t feel comfortable bringing it up. Instead, he tried to guide the conversation back to more neutral topics.
    “So, what do you do?” he asked. “Did you end up being a social worker like you planned?”
    Dawn shook her head. “No.