Nicole Edwards - Travis

Travis leaned down and placed a quick kiss on her mouth. “It’s going to be fine, baby. I promise you,” he whispered in her ear as he stood to his full height, his confidence helping put some of the starch back in her spine.

Wait. No. No, it didn’t help at all. As soon as she looked at her father, all of the starch disappeared again.

Kylie needed to turn the air up, the room was suddenly way too hot.

Realizing she was supposed to be the hostess, she looked at the four people now staring at her. “Daddy. Melissa. I’d like you to meet Travis Walker and Gage Matthews. Travis, Gage, this is my father, Joe, and his fiancé, Melissa.”

Kylie watched as her father looked over the two men who had become her very lifeline. In fact, the only reason she was standing here with her father in the same room as the two men she loved was because of them. They insisted she introduce them. In person. After she procrastinated, – for two weeks – Travis had asked for her father’s phone number.

Yes. Chicken that she was, she’d given it to him. And, solid rock that he was, Travis had called Joe and asked if they could come to Dallas to meet him. To everyone’s shock, Joe had insisted that he come to Killeen and meet them at Kylie’s. She still wasn’t sure the reason for that, but she hadn’t questioned any of them.

“Dinner is almost ready,” Kylie said, her voice quivering, but she could do nothing to stop it. “Melissa, would you mind helping me?”

“Sure, honey.”

Without waiting to see whether her father was going to talk to Travis and Gage or just stare them down, she led Melissa into the kitchen. Being that the space was fairly open, she could see them as they continued to stand in the middle of the living room.

“Ky,” Melissa said, placing her warm, gentle hand on Kylie’s arm. “You know it’s going to be perfectly fine, don’t you?”

Kylie turned to face her future stepmother, staring at her like she was an alien from another planet and had just bestowed the key to the universe. “How do you know that?” she whispered. She had to clear her throat in order to find her voice.

“Because your father wants you to be happy,” she said, taking Kylie’s hand. “He’s not here to interrogate them. You need to remember, he loves you. Very much.”

“But…” Kylie wanted to ask Melissa if she thought it was normal that she was introducing two men to her father. Two. Not just one. She wanted to ask if they even realized exactly what was going on here. The way the woman was acting, Kylie was beginning to think maybe she hadn’t been clear about the situation.

Two. Both men. For her. Not just one.

Ok, she really was going to have to fix that air conditioner.

“See, look,” Melissa said, gripping Kylie’s shoulders and turning her to face the three men who… were now sitting on the sofas in the living room. Laughing.

Ok. What was going on?

Didn’t they know that this was not normal? That a girl didn’t bring two men home to meet her father? Or in this case, bring her father to her home to meet two men.

Two men that she loved.

She did love them. A lot.

“Take a deep breath, Kylie.” Melissa’s tone was steady as she wrapped a warm arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “Ok, now look at me.”

Kylie tilted her head and glanced at Melissa, unsure exactly what she was supposed to do next. This was the most awkward situation she’d ever been in before. Even worse than the birds and bees talk that her father had insisted on having with her when she was sixteen. Considering she’d been in high school by then and had learned more in sex education class than she ever wanted to know, she’d told him he could spare them both the embarrassment.

He had thanked her for that.

“Do you love them?” Melissa asked, interrupting the random trail her thoughts were heading down.

“Of course I do. I love them very much,” Kylie mumbled as she stared at Gage and Travis who were sitting in the living room. Sitting. With her father. “Are you hot?” Kylie asked Melissa and then pulled away. She shook her head and tried to clear the fog from her brain.

“Actually, it’s quite comfortable. Now back to you,” she said with a sincere smile. “You love them. You said so. Which means you have nothing to worry about.”

“What are you talking about?” They hadn’t even had dinner yet. How would her father interact with them? Was he going to be mean? Would he interrogate them? Would he talk about her when she was a kid? Did he know about the resort?

So hot she was beginning to sweat.

The timer on the oven chose that moment to go off. Kylie was tempted to reach out to see if she found her alarm clock’s snooze button beside her. Surely this wasn’t happening. She’d spent the better part of the morning panicking, cleaning, cooking and then panicking some more. And for what? So Melissa could tell her that…

Maybe if she stuck her head in the freezer…

A booming laugh erupted in the living room, and Kylie turned around. That was her father. He was laughing. There weren’t any disapproving looks, no fingers being pointed, no warnings being declared. He was laughing .

“See, I told you it’ll be perfectly fine,” Melissa reassured her. “Now where are the pot holders? We’ve got to get this out of the oven.”

Kylie retrieved a pot holder from the drawer beside the oven and handed it to Melissa blindly as she continued to stare into the living room. Travis and Gage were sitting side by side on one of the sofas, her father sitting on the other across from them. They were all reclining back, all three of them holding a beer in their hand as they talked.

“That’s it?” Kylie asked, turning to face Melissa. “I spent all week being sick to my stomach, and they aren’t even going to talk about me?”

Melissa turned to face her, placing the pan on the stovetop as she grinned. “Oh, honey, if that’s what you’re worried about, well, that happened a week ago. Trust me, your dad loves you, but he’s no dummy. He took care of that chat when Gage and Travis came to visit us in Dallas. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“They what ?”

Travis said that her father wanted to come to her house and meet them. Was Melissa confused? Travis and Gage never mentioned going to see her father. Whoa! Ok, the room was starting to spin. Pretty fast too .

“Hey, boys. One of you might want to get in here. I think she’s going to pass out. I told you not to leave her in suspense like this, Joe.”

Melissa’s voice sounded strange, Kylie thought as she tried to hold on to the counter. Like she was one of the adults on the Snoopy cartoons.

The last thing Kylie remembered was Travis’ warm arms coming around her… at the same time the world went black.

“Hey, little girl,” her father’s voice woke her from sleep and Kylie smiled up at him.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Feeling better?” he asked, sounding concerned.

“Fine, why?” Kylie sat up, realizing she was in her bed, but she was fully dressed and…

Everything came flooding back to her in a flash, and she glared at her father. “Melissa said you already met Travis and Gage.”

“I did, honey,” Joe smiled, but he looked like he was trying to hide it. “Those men of yours are pretty protective of you, you know that?”

Yes, yes she did know that. How that translated into them meeting her father, she had no idea. Instead of asking more questions, Kylie waited for him to enlighten her. She wasn’t sure she had the energy to try and figure it out for herself.

Joe took her hand and held it between both of his while Kylie stared down where they were joined.