I said, “Well, let me ask you another question.” I was on a roll with her, so I kept it going. “Now this hotel room and all is nice, but what if I want to stay with you and my daughter tomorrow night. Would that be a problem?”

She said, “Are you asking me if you can spend the night?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, ask me then.”

I was hesitant. I needed to understand her rules.

“Well, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to disturb your rules and everything,” I told her. “You’ve been doing well for yourself.”

She said, “I can explain it this way: I have rules for everyone else that I won’t be willing to break. I mean, that’s just how I live my life. But then I’ll have that special person who I’d be willing to break all the rules for. And after four years, trust me, I can’t wait. So ask me what you want to ask me.”

Man, she had my mouth wide open with that one. I said, “Aw’ight…so ahh…” I stopped and felt awkward for some reason. I just went for broke the first time I had been with Michelle. But now she was the mother of my child. That made a difference to me. Suddenly, I respected her more. But I still wanted to turn her out.

Finally, I backed down and changed the subject. I said, “You know, you didn’t go about things the right way. What if I had gotten married or passed away or something, while you were out here walking around with my daughter?”

“That was the chance I took by waiting,” she told me. “But there would have been no chance years ago.”

“Well, if I wasn’t ready then, what makes you so sure that I’m ready now?” I asked her.

First she chuckled. Then she said, “You should have seen your face when you saw Bree at the airport. That was a classic picture.”

I laughed at that myself. Meeting my daughter for the first time was a hell of a moment for me. It was unposed and unpracticed.

“Yeah, you got me there. That would have been a classic picture,” I admitted. “Have you collected any of my magazine spreads?”

I remembered that she collected things that meant something to her, like her brother’s baseball stats and playing cards. So I figured I would ask her about my magazine photos. I had surely taken enough of them.

“Would you think I was weird if I did?” she asked me with a pause.

“No, I would just know that you were paying attention. I mean, you still collect your brother’s baseball stuff, don’t you?”

“You remember that?” She sounded excited by it.

“Yeah, I remember. I was around you when he first got called up to the major leagues.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Well, they’re thinking about trading him now.”

“Yeah, that happens to the best of them,” I told her.

“But he wants to be traded to a West Coast team to be closer to us, you know; San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle, L.A….”