Distracting Dad. Terry Essig

arched an eyebrow. “Aren’t you a little old to be passing the buck?” she inquired.

      “I am not passing the buck,” Nate said. “It’s the truth.” He waved a frustrated hand in an erasing motion. “Oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Just go down and show my father the mess, will you? I’ll get this load started and be right there.”

      “You shouldn’t leave your clothes in the laundry room,” Allie informed him. “Someone might steal them.”

      “Out of a working machine?”

      She nodded. “Yes. It happened to me in my college dorm.”

      Oh, yeah? And what was her degree in? Mother hen-ism? Writing advice columns? “I’ll chance it,” Nate said with a forced smile. “You’ve got enough problems,” he advised her. “You really shouldn’t worry your pretty little head over mine.” He smiled condescendingly, knowing he’d just gotten her goat but good.

      “Wouldn’t think of it,” she said. “Just don’t knock on my door when you need a towel so you can take your shower.”

      “Wouldn’t think of it,” Nate responded just as insincerely. He rolled his eyes and took off for the laundry room before this ridiculous nonconversation went any further.

      Nate dumped soap into the bottom of a couple of washing machines then started tossing lights into one, darks into the other in a rather haphazard fashion. He only shrugged when he noticed a dark sock had gotten in with his underwear, not bothering to retrieve it.

      “All right, so I wrecked her bed, her ceiling and quite possibly her floor,” Nate muttered to himself as he gave the controls a vicious twist. “I said I’d take care of it, didn’t I?” Nate’s stomach clutched at the sound of water running into the machines. He ran his palm over his abdomen soothing it. “Just like a woman. Get a hold of something and never let it go. Probably thinks I won’t make good on it,” he continued to mutter as he stacked the detergent box into the empty clothes hamper. “Well, she doesn’t need to worry. When Nathaniel Parker says he’s going to take care of something, it’s as good as done.”

      Self-righteously he picked up his supplies and, with one final baleful glare at the filling machines, turned away. “I’ll tell you what, anybody takes anything out of those machines before I get back and that woman gets to say I told you so, they’re dead meat. Dead meat,” he repeated, almost wishing someone would try. He was in the mood to take somebody on, no doubt about that.

      Nate bounded back up the stairs. He dropped his hamper off at his place, grabbed the mop and bucket and headed down to 2H. No point in putting off the agony.

      The door to Allie’s condo wasn’t closed tightly and Nate nudged it open with his foot as his hands were full.

      “Yes, well it’s like I was saying, my son seems to be having trouble finding himself a good woman, Allie. Course, he’s looking in all the wrong places. Singles bars.” Ted made a disgusted sound. “What do you get when you pick up somebody at a bar? An alcoholic, that’s what. A good woman doesn’t hang out in a bar, for God’s sake.”

      Nate had obviously caught the end of a conversation. Sad, sorrowful and deep, that was definitely his dad and, unless Nate missed his guess, dear old dad was on another one of his rolls, with Nate once again the topic of choice.

      “And a man needs a good woman. A wife can make or break a man,” Ted continued to expound. “God knows I’ve tried explaining that simple concept over and over, but Nate just doesn’t seem to get it. I don’t suppose, since you don’t have anyone special…no? Well, maybe you have a friend?”

      Nate dropped the bucket on his foot.

      He couldn’t believe it. His father was sneaking around behind his back trying to marry him off! If that wasn’t the most underhanded, conniving, manipulative thing the old man had tried yet, Nate didn’t know what was.

      And besides, he’d thought of it first.

      Chapter Two

      With the sound of the clattering bucket, two heads poked into the room. “Wha—oh, uh, Nate, you get your laundry started already?”

      Nate righted the bucket, then stood up and looked at his father. “Yeah, Dad, I did. Can I talk to you for a moment?” Nate gestured to the open condo door. “Out in the hallway maybe?”

      Ted cleared his throat. “Well now, nothing I’d rather do than have a heart-to-heart with my one and only son, don’t you know. But little Allie here was showing me her bedroom. I gotta tell you, son, it’s a mess. Yes, indeed.” Ted pointed behind him. “I’m afraid our little talk will have to take a back seat. Here, have a look at this.”

      Nate shook his head in disparagement. No way was his father getting away with this. “Dad—”

      “No, really, come have a look.”

      Nate heaved a great sigh and pushed away from the mop and bucket. He could hold his own with the CFO of any major corporation, but with his own father, he was clueless as how to proceed. “Fine, Dad. Let’s see. Show me the mess.”

      Allie’s condo appeared to be laid out exactly the same as his own, only reversed. But the décor screamed female in the house. They ought to get one of those decorator magazine editors in here, Nate decided as he reluctantly wound his way through the small foyer, to the efficiency kitchen, and on into the living-dining area and then the bedroom.

      Nate took a last look around. Yeah, some editor could do a great series on how the same layout could look totally different with just a few changes in paint and furniture. Nate liked to think of his own place as, well, masculine. Little wonder, as it just so happened his condo was full of what Nate considered manly stuff. Guy choices. Tan carpet, brown leather sofa pit, modern pictures loaded with these really cool geometric shapes in tan, brown and black that didn’t try to be anything other than what they were: cool shapes. There wasn’t a candle in the place, no overburdened silk flower arrangements and definitely no little artsy-fartsy ceramic bowls brimming with stinky potpourri sitting around catching dust, making you sneeze. And pink? What was that? Certainly not a color in Nate’s vocabulary.

      Allie’s place couldn’t be more girly girl. Pink might not be the only word in her vocabulary but it was darn close. And knickknacks? Good grief, the woman could open a store. She could stock it for a year out of her living room alone. Nate sniffed in dismissal, turned around and looked up at the bedroom ceiling.

      Oh, God. He needed to check his insurance policy. The problem was, he knew he’d taken a high deductible to lower the rates. He hoped to heaven this type of thing was covered, because he suspected he’d exceeded even his exorbitant deductible.

      “Holy cow.”

      “Yes,” his father agreed. “It’s a mess all right.” He slapped Nate on the back. “Well, we’ve got our work cut out for us, son.”

      Nate, his father and Allie watched as a drop of water fell from the stained ceiling and hit the bed with a sodden plop.

      Ted scratched his head. “Probably take a while for the water that was already trapped between your floor and her ceiling to work its way through now that we’ve stopped the leak. I hope it doesn’t drip too much longer, though. The carpet’s pretty well saturated already. Know anybody with a wet vac?”

      Allie volunteered to ring neighbors’ doorbells while Nate and Ted wrestled the mattress off the bed.

      As they struggled to guide their sodden burden through the bedroom doorway, Nate mused that it wasn’t so much the mattress he minded replacing, it was the bed linens themselves. This room too was done in early Easter egg. Come on, pink and yellow and wimpy purple—no, lavender—that was what you called washed-out purple, lavender. Nate decided then and there to just give her the money. She’d have to replace the stuff herself. No way was he going to go into a store and buy pale purple anything. From the looks of things, this Allie woman didn’t