She’d told Ash about her period first, because she’d admitted she wasn’t ready for me to go “doctor on her” and give a spiel on girls becoming women.
I could laugh about it now, but I’d been sort of embarrassed back then. I wasn’t a medical doctor, for chrissakes. On the other hand…maybe, just maybe, I was the one who occasionally went overboard with talking things out. At great length. When most kids just wanted to move on with life. At least until a girl turned thirteen and wanted to talk to Dad about this boy she’d kissed for two-and-a-half seconds behind school and what it might mean.
I let out a breath and looked out over the breathtaking view of…the parking lot.
Taking another bite of my shrimp wrap, I zeroed in on a man standing some fifty feet away outside a small diner with the worst coffee I’d ever had.
Was that Reese? He’d better not go in. He’d be disappointed with the coffee. The crispy bacon wasn’t crispy either.
“What if she moves across the country for college, Nate? Like fucking Los Angeles or San Francisco?”
Oh dear. He was spiraling now.
“What’s her favorite season?” I asked.
He finished his wrap and chewed. “Winter.”
“More than that, when itsnows. We won’t lose her to sunny California,” I assured him. “All colleges on her list are northern East Coast schools.”
Yale, Brown, NYU, Columbia, Penn…
Ash scratched his eyebrow. “We’re not taking out a second mortgage.”
I furrowed my brow. “How else are we gonna help her? It took us sixteen fucking years to pay off my student loans. The interest alone will bury her for decades.”
He gave me a pointed look. “This is what the Bank of Riley is for.”
Had he lost his damn mind? Good grief!
“We’re not asking your parents to pay?—”
“To borrow,” he corrected. “This will be between our kids and their grandparents. Trust me, my folks will be offended if we don’t go to them.” He picked up his soda. “It’ll be a loan taken outta their inheritance, but there won’t be any interest.”
I blew out a breath, both frustrated and deflated. Of course, had I been in his parents’ shoes, I would’ve done the same thing. But it still bothered me that it was so fucking expensive to provide for your children that you even had to think about second and third mortgages. Ash and I had good careers; his business was doing so well, and I’d busted my ass in school to get my degrees. We didn’t live extravagantly or beyond our means. If anything, we were careful. We purposely steered our kids away from all things Disney, because one weekend in their parks could ruin a family, and Europe or Asia was out of the question.
Instead, we’d talked about eventually doing a solo trip or four. As in, Ash might take Dylan to Europe on a golf trip. I might go somewhere with Hallie. She dreamed of visiting Vienna and Tokyo. And later on, wherever Micah and Lily might want to go when they got older.
“Life is expensive,” I sighed.
“Fuckin’ tell me about it. But we’re lucky.”
I couldn’t deny that.
I leaned over and kissed his jaw, then crammed the last of my lunch into my mouth and pointed toward Reese.
“Isn’t that Reese outside the diner?”
Ash squinted, following my gaze. “Hmm, maybe. Or River. Reese prefers his own car.”
Oh. I hadn’t considered that, but now I noticed the familiar truck I’d seen so many times in Mclean.
Ash let out a sharp whistle, and a Tenley soon looked over here.
Okay, it had to be River, given that he was wearing a black T-shirt that just read “NO” in big, bold letters. Reese was more of a “let’s fuckin’ do it” kind of man.
“Definitely River,” Ash chuckled quietly.
The man came closer, hands stuck in the pockets of his jeans and a furrow between his brows.
