Excerpt – A REALLY awkward conversation – #MFRWHooks

So this is an excerpt from the second part of  “Ten Years and Then…” Daniel and Nora have been dating for 3 months, and things are great – for now.  This excerpt is an epically awkward moment for poor Daniel the morning after he stays over at Nora’s dorm room…

“I just remembered,” Nora said. “I had clothes in the dryer yesterday, and I never got them. You mind waiting up here for a minute?” Of course Daniel didn’t mind. There was nowhere else he’d rather be. “And if the phone rings, pick it up. Tammy was going to call this morning to pick a time to study later.”

It rang about fifteen seconds after she left. He answered it, and it wasn’t Tammy on the line.

“Good morning, Pumpkin!”

It was Nora’s father. He took a deep breath. He could do this. Nora had put up with being interrogated by his whole family for hours. The least he could do was to talk to her father for five minutes.

“Uh—this is Daniel, Mr. Langley.”

Oh, God.

He wasn’t just talking to Nora’s father. He was in Nora’s dorm room, before eight o’clock on a Saturday morning, talking to her father. He might as well have said “I slept with your daughter last night, how are you this morning?”

But luck—or something—was with him, because there was a little chuckle on the line. “The Daniel? The one my daughter is in love with?”

He didn’t know Nora had told her father that. “Yes, sir.” What else was there to say?

Another chuckle. “You can skip the sir, and the Mr. Langley. Call me Richard. And where is Nora, by the way?”

“Down in the laundry room. She left her clothes in the dryer yesterday.” Well, it was true.

“That sounds like her. She probably gets that from me.” There was a pause. “She got a lot from me, Daniel. Good and bad.”

“Sir? Uh—I mean, Richard? I don’t understand.”

Another pause. “That’s a good sign. Maybe she doesn’t take after me as much as I thought. Maybe she learned what not to do.”

Daniel had no idea what the man was trying to say, and he wasn’t at all sure he really wanted to know. “Uh … okay?”

“It’s fine, Daniel. Forget everything I just said. Just—take good care of her. She deserves—she needs love. More than she even knows, I think. She needs somebody she can believe in, no matter what. If it’s you, I can’t ask more than that.”

“I love her. And all I want to do is take care of her,” he said, and Nora picked that moment to come back, so—thank God—he didn’t need to say anything more. He took the laundry basket out of her arms with one hand, and gave her the phone with the other. “It’s your father,” he told her.

She looked like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh, cry or scream. He didn’t blame her one bit.

You can find “Ten Years and Then…” on Amazon, at a list of other ebook retailers, and on Audible!

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…