“For trusting me.” She reached for his hand. He took it and drew it to his lips.
“For someone who considers himself a clueless asshole, you always know the perfect thing to say.” They lay in silence a few more minutes before he spoke again.
“I never said I was clueless. That part was just understood,” he said. They both laughed.
“Do you have any questions?” she asked.
“They can’t fix it so you don’t hurt?”
“God, Parker. I was talking about breakfast.” He sat up–horror etched on his face. “I’m kidding,” she added quickly. He lay back down on the floor.
“There is surgery, but it doesn’t last. They recommend waiting until I’m ready to have kids before doing it.” He nodded his head as he stared at the ceiling. She waited patiently for him to ask the question everyone always wanted to know.
“I won’t know if I can have kids until it comes time to try,” she said when he didn’t ask. She felt him squeeze her hand before he turned it loose to sit back up. He laid his head on the bed facing her, then he ran his hand over her messy hair.
“Do you want to hear a secret about me that only a few people know?” he asked as he continued to play with her hair. With a smile, she nodded, fully expecting to hear about some badass moment from his life.
“I can’t add numbers. I mean, I can add them in my head. I just can’t on paper. It’s some sort of learning disability they tested me for in middle school when they finally caught me cheating on a math test.”
“What happens when they’re written down?” she asked.
“It’s like they jumble up. It drives me crazy because I know two plus two is four and if you give me a five-spot, I owe you a dollar back. But when I write that down the numbers don’t stay where they’re supposed to.”
“So how do you balance the books at the bar?”
“I never add up the table tickets, just the bar where I can remember the numbers. Andrea usually does the tables. The books are balanced by Liam with my verbal help. I have a fucking fifteen-year-old for a bookkeeper. How fucked up is that?”
“Pretty fucked up,” she said, trying to pull a serious face.
“I probably shouldn’t have kids anyway. Between Mom dying of an aneurysm, Dad having a stroke, and my scrambled mind, we have a history of some pretty fucked-up problems. I don’t know how my brothers came out so gifted.”
“In other words, you’re my very own version ofA Beautiful Mind,” Astrid said, smiling at him.
“Yeah, except I’m the opposite of John Nash. He was brilliant, I’m not even close.” Astrid scowled at him.
“Don’t sell yourself short. I don't know many people that could run a business like yours at your age. Wait, how old are you?” When he grinned at her, she wondered if he had any idea how he made her heart race every time he did that.
“How old do you think I am?” His grin slowly dropped as she considered his question. Other than his tattoos, he had no other noticeable marks on his body. His hair had no gray in it yet, nor did he have any other telltale signs of aging like crow’s-feet around his eyes.
“Thirty maybe?” She guessed.
“Thirty? You think I look thirty?”
“Then tell me how old you are,” she said in exasperation at him. She didn’t understand what the big deal was about his age. Was he closer to forty and was therefore labeled in the creepy perv category?
“You’re not over forty, are you?”
“For fuck’s sake. I’m not over forty,” he exclaimed, leaning back against the wall.
Spotting his shorts that lay on the other side of the bed, she dove for them. She fought to pull the wallet out as he picked her up off the floor. He tossed her back onto the bed. She opened the wallet as he straddled her legs, wrestling for it.
“I found it,” she exclaimed, pulling his driver’s license out. She waved it around as she evaded his hands. “It says here you’re… twenty-three? That makes you only two years older than me.”
He pinned both of her hands in one of his, plucking the license away from her with the other one. Tossing it on the floor next to his wallet, he continued to hold her arms down with both hands.
“Why is it a big deal how old you are?” She asked.
“If my vendors or customers found out how young I am, they’d walk all over me.”
