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“Don’t have one,” he hissed out, obviously in pain.
Maybe he didn’t have any health insurance. Didn’t the magazine he worked for cover anything? They sounded like a bunch of twats.
“Anyway.” He nodded in thanks after receiving the painkillers the waitress disposed in his hand, along with a handwritten phone number and some water. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“We’re getting married this week.”
“May I?” I reached over to his waffles. He nodded. I knew he wouldn’t judge me for it. When I looked up at him with a mouthful of hot, fluffy waffles full of whipped cream and syrup, Riggs’s eyes gleamed with joy.
“If this was a real wedding, who would you invite?” I asked.
“Itisa real wedding.” He swiped his finger over his whipped cream, sucking on it. “And I invited the usual suspects. Christian, Arsène, Arya, and Winnie. Maybe Alice. She’s Christian’s faux-mommy.”
“Sounds ... delightful. What about family?” I asked.
“They’re my family.”
“I mean extended one. Parents, uncles, cousins. You must have someone.” I reached for his plate again, but he was quicker, switching between our plates and taking my empty one.
“Nope.” His eyes caressed my face. “No relatives whatsoever. Not even a pet hamster.”
“How come?” I remembered the offhanded way he’d told me he’d had a miserable childhood, and how I hadn’t pressed for more details,and I suddenly felt terrible for being so selfishly focused on myself in that moment.
“Well, I’m always on the road, so no sense in getting a pet. But hamsters specifically freak me out. They eat their young.Literally.”
“Riggs!” I chided. “How come you don’t have a family?”
“It’s a long story,” he said.
“I’ve nowhere to go,” I pressed.
“It’s depressing too.”
On a whim, I reached out, touching his palm across the table. It was the first time I’d initiated anything physical with him. “I absolutelylovedepressing stories. They’re my favorite. Remember, I’m the same person who told you I think Jane Austen should’ve killed off Mr. Darcy and had Elizabeth and her family join Scotland Yard and find his murderer. The same person who told you I went to school with torn clothes and empty lunch packs. Depressing life stories are my comfort zone.”
He hesitated, a smile on his face, before dropping his head in resignation.
“I’ll give you the condensed, comma-free version: My very gay grandfather ran away from Scotland to San Francisco in his twenties after his Catholic family disowned him because of his sexual orientation. There, he met an older man with a daughter from a previous marriage. That daughter was my mom. Elderly Gentleman and my grandfather fell in love and lived together. Elderly Gentleman kicked the bucket three years later, when my mom was fourteen, and left pretty much everything to my granddad—daughter included. He got full custody and raised her as his.
“When she was eighteen, my mother got knocked up with my ass. The guy who impregnated her was some no-good bum, completely insignificant to this story. As soon as she pushed me out, she ran away with the asshole, and my grandfather raised me. Then, when my mom was nineteen, she died in a car accident. Fast-forward to when I was a preteen, my grandfather died. So, yeah, basically. No family. Mygrandfather had friends and colleagues, but no one to step up and actually take care of me.”
I stared at him, my jaw on the floor. He really didn’t have anyone. No wonder he was a commitment-phobe. He had no idea what it felt like to belong.
“And your biological dad?” I managed through a choke I hoped he didn’t hear.
Riggs hitched a shoulder up. “Don’t even know his name.”
“The family in Scotland?”
“Can shove it.” He sat back, looking disgusted. “They sounded like assholes. When he died, they’d offered I move to Dundee with them. Thanks, but no fucking thanks. I don’t have a taste for homophobia.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said quietly.
He slipped his hand from underneath mine, tipping his coffee cup in salute. “No need to be. I turned out fine, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” I said seriously, feeling my cheeks heating up. “You turned out perfect.”
