I'm sorry with the wait for this chapter. I had quite a bit of personal drama going on, and family gatherings to attend, that writing was pushed to the back burner for a while. I am hoping that now that everything has died down a bit that I can start to get things updated at a weekly rate once again. This chapter also gave me a bit more trouble than I suspected it would. The good news is that I do know what the next two chapters will hold and I do have chapter ten half written. Enjoy!
After finishing breakfast the three of them left in a bit of a hurry Wade wanting to stick to a certain time schedule as he did make plans for a date with Zoe after dropping his daughter off with her mom. It was something he didn't want to subject Zoe too, not yet. As it would be something that he needed to get use to while dating Zoe. His ex-wife and his girlfriend would cross paths, that is inevitable, the longer he could delay it the better he felt over the situation. Zoe on the other hand, didn't mind.
"It's not as if I am walking Aria to the door, Wade. In fact, I am not even getting out of the car. But you need to understand that if we're going to be together I will have to deal with your ex-wife at some point. You cannot keep this life and that one separate. I can handle this," Zoe told him no nonsense to her voice.
"You should listen to her more often, Dad," Aria piped up in the back seat. "And I am not a baby; you don't even need to walk me to the front door of mom's place," she tacked on, an annoyance to her voice.
"I know this on both accounts," he told them both, turning onto the street, his ex-wife and his no longer best friend lived on. "I know I can't stop this from happening; I just wanted to hold off on it," he explained the best he could as he couldn't voice the weird feeling he felt over his girlfriend meeting his ex-wife. In ways it felt like, he was showing Zoe, who he essentially replaced her for, and it wasn't something he wanted to go around rubbing into her face. Moving on from what they had was hard, but it was needed for the both of them, he understood that. There were parts from his past without her that he didn't enjoy putting in front of Zoe. Things would be awkward enough, as it were; he didn't want to make it anymore awkward than things needed to be, for all of them.
"I get it; I do," she told him sincerely. She understood it, because there were parts of her past with Joel that she can't share with him, and if this was something that he didn't need to be doing he wouldn't be sharing it with her, but because he has Aria, he has no choice in the matter at hand.
The topic had been dropped when Wade pulled into the driveway of his ex-wife and his old friend. Wade and Zoe biding Aria good-bye, Wade giving her an, I love you, before she parted ways from them, Aria returning the sentiment with her dad, saying a good-bye to Zoe. All hope of them sitting in the car until Aria made it safely inside her mom's house, as Wade didn't want to leave a second before that. It wasn't in him to leave before he knew she was safely inside. Not today there wouldn't be but any other day, there could be the chance of no one being home, and he didn't want his daughter to be stranded outside to wait for them to get home, just because he couldn't wait to make sure she was safe inside, so he would wait. And that hope flew right out the window with one look at Meatball. In the front yard Meatball and his youngest were playing a game of catch. Meatball being Meatball, his face lit up seeing his old friend and Zoe sitting in the car.
"Zoe, I didn't know you were back," he commented, fitting himself through the open window to hug her. "You back for good? Or just visiting?" He asked, pulling himself from the window, ducking down to peer through the window.
"I'm back," she smiled albeit comfortably. "How have you been?" She asked being polite.
"Ya know, same old same old," he replied, not letting Zoe know how anything in his life is going. "Hey, Wade," he greeted a bit awkwardly.
"Hey," Wade greeted with a nod.
"Are you two back together again?" He asked, looking between the two of them. "Go figure huh?" He stated, not giving them a chance to answer his question. "What do you have planned for the day?" He skipped right over the other questions on his mind.
"Meatball, do you really think that is any of your business?" Wade snapped, getting annoyed with his old friend for asking so many personal questions.
"I suppose not," he sighed, moving away from the car. "Do you think that we can maybe ya know meet up later in the week, and ya know talk about everything?" He asked near full on bashful.
"I guess it wouldn't be the most horrible thing in the world," Wade commented. Knowing that he needed to clear the air with one of his childhood friends after everything, now would be a good time to do so. "Wednesday night good for you?" Wade asked.
"6 at the little tavern we visited during college?" Meatball asked.
"I can do that," Wade smiled. "See ya then, Meatball," Wade told him, putting the car into gear.
"See ya, Wade. It was nice seeing ya Zoe," Meatball said, walking from the car, meeting his wife on the porch.
"I can see why you fell in love with her," Zoe commented seeing the woman on the porch; her long flowing locks pulled up into a neat bun. A bright-red smile painted onto her porcelain face. She was beautiful; Zoe could see that. And in many ways Aria took after her mom in the looks department.
"Yeah," Wade sighed. He never questioned how good looking his ex is, but to him, Zoe would always be more stunning and beautiful than his ex could ever be. And if it wasn't for Aria being put into the middle of the drama, he wouldn't even care that she ran off to Meatball. Most of his hate over the situation was because his daughter was dropped right into the middle of it, feeling abandoned by her mother.
"I was thinking that I could stay with Aria, or she could stay at my place Wednesday night. She would get to school," Zoe commented.
"I wouldn't want to impose her on you," Wade told her. His mom would be more than happy to watch her granddaughter for the night.
"Is it imposing when I am the one saying I would like to spend the night with her?" She countered with. She didn't mind watching Aria, the more time they could spend without Wade around the stronger their bond would be.
"I'll ask her. It needs to be her choice," Wade settled on. He wouldn't force his daughter to spend the night with either one of them; it needed to be her choice. "About Aria," he started to say, thinking over the best way to address things with Zoe as not to hurt her feelings or make her think he didn't trust her with his daughter.
"What about Aria?" Zoe questioned, worried something was wrong when Wade stayed quiet far longer than she liked.
"It's hard for us to know how long this is going to last. Anything can happen, not that I am waiting for us to break up, because I don't want that, Zoe," he quickly told her not wanting her to think he was waiting for them to break up, that wasn't the case at all.
"I understand that, Wade. We cannot predict the future. Now my question is what does that have to do with Aria?" She asked, getting her boyfriend to relax some.
"If we happen to break up, I don't want Aria to get hurt by it. She likes you, Zoe. It's hard not to. But I worry for her, as she is already attached to you."
"Do you really think that if in some bizarre twisted fate that we broke up that I would forget about Aria?" Zoe asked, cutting her boyfriend off from whatever else he had to say. To have him hint at something like that hurt, deeply.
"I know you won't do that to her. Aria, on the other hand, she doesn't know that, because she doesn't know you like I do," he quickly assured her that she didn't think anything of the sort like that.
"Then she will need to be assured that I wouldn't do that to her. That I wouldn't leave her like her mom did," Zoe told him. She knew it was a low blow on Aria's mom, but it was the truth and with the talk of Aria worried she would leave her just like her mom did if things went south with Wade. "That is what you are hinting at isn't it?" She asked softly.
"Sadly enough, it is just like that," Wade sighed. "But you can't blame her," he stated. Aria has been through a lot when it came to her mom and to have someone she looked up to as a mother figure abandoned her, he worried it would damage her more than anything else.
"I don't blame her. She's been through a lot. The last thing I want to do is put her through more. I will talk to her about it and tell her point blank that if things don't work out with us, that I will still be there for her whenever she needs me, like to convince her father to let her go on a date with her crush," Zoe smirked, turning the conversation around on him.
"Yes, because that is what I need," he remarked. "I'm not getting out of this am I?" He questioned, admitting defeat early on, knowing that his girlfriend and his daughter wouldn't give up until he relented. Doing so now is the easier option.
"Nope," Zoe replied, shaking her head. "Have Aria invite him over for dinner; I will help you make dinner," Zoe told him. "And if you want to do more to ensure that he is good enough to date Aria, then invite his parents over," she suggested.
"I could do that, maybe on Saturday," he suggested. It wasn't as if Aria needed to spend every weekend at her mom's house, two weekends a month is what the court decided on, he needed to spend quality time with his daughter on the weekend's as well.
"Once you figure it out, I'll be there to help in any way possible," Zoe told him, resting her hand on his leg. "Now where are you taking me for this date?" She questioned.
"Now that is something I can't tell you," he smirked, wrapping his fingers around hers, bringing her hand up to place a kiss to her palm. "Just know that you will love it, and we've been there before," he said, giving her some sort of hint.
"That can be anything," she retorted with a laugh, pulling his hand to rest in her lap, wrapping her free hand around their joined hands.
"You'll figure it out," he smirked. It would only be a matter of time before she figured out what he planned for the day.
Wade planned the perfect first date for her when they were teens, at least back then he hoped it would turn out to be perfect. It had been a perfect first date. The following three dates they had weren't so much perfect as those dates consisted of them doing a group date with a group of friends or a double date with Jesse and going on a double date with your older brother wasn't exactly a pleasant night out. Their fifth date being the one Zoe classified as the worst date she's ever had, he still saw that night in a different light.
"Oak Hollow Farm?" She questioned, seeing the billboards far enough in advance. "Horseback riding and a picnic?" She questioned a sparkle to her dark chocolate eyes.
"The whole thing," he promised, gently squeezing her hand. It was such an easy date to recreate with different trails to take that he would do it again in the future as well, because he knew how much Zoe loved it, from the horseback riding to the majestic view they got along the way, right down to spectacular view when the sun started to set in the sky.