“I’ll have a pancake stack, two fried eggs, banana muffin, and coffee please.” Last night’s activities has built up an appetite.
“And for you, sweetheart?” Louise asks Penny.
“I’ll have a bagel with cream cheese please, and arrhh…can you add chocolate sauce on it?”
Louise’s pencil pauses on the pad as she gives Penny a strange look. Hell, it’s probably the same baffled look I’m giving her.
“Sure, no problem. I’ll be right back with your orders.”
When she walks away, I say, “Who puts chocolate sauce on a cream cheese bagel? It sounds disgusting.”
Penny shifts on her seat. “Don’t knock it until you try it.”
“There’s no way I ever will. That’s something kids would eat.” I screw my nose up with disgust.
She shrugs her shoulder. “Speaking of kids, why isn’t a guy like you married with children yet?”
“A guy like me?”
“You know, successful, rich, talented, sweet, sexy.”
“Wow, anything else?”
She rolls her eyes. “Conceited, bossy—”
I hold my hand out like a stop sign. “Okay, I think I like the first list better.”
We both laugh.
I fiddle with the cutlery on the table. “I don’t want marriage and kids.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Never, or not in the near future?”
“Never.”
“I know marriage and kids isn’t for everyone, but is there a reason you don’t want to go down that path?” she asks.
As I think of the reason, my skin tightens and my jaw clenches.
“You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to,” she adds as if she senses my tension.
“It’s okay. I don’t mind talking about it. I don’t want marriage and kids because I’m exactly like my father and he’s an asshole.”
Her eyes widen. “What do you mean?”
Blowing out a long breath, I scrub the back of my neck. I hate what he did to our family—what he did to my mother. “A few years ago, I learned that my father constantly cheated on my mother. The worst part was when he was with one of his mistresses while my mother lay dying in a hospital room asking for him. When we contacted him, he told us he was out of the country for work and wouldn’t make it back in time.”
Penny covers her mouth. “Oh my God. That’s…that’s…”
“Fucked up,” I supply as she struggles with the words.
“Did they have a troubled relationship?”
“That’s what’s really messed up. Looking at them, you’d think they were madly in love. Always laughing and affectionate withone another. He’d often tell me and my brothers stories, when Mom wasn’t around, about how he played the field. How he never wanted to settle down until he met our mother. Dad said he’d found the love of his life and had to marry her. I think in some sick way, he believed he loved her.”
“Why would he cheat if she was the love of his life?”
I shrug. “Because there’s something seriously wrong with him.”
