Page 24 of Waste of Worth

“Do you miss home?”

“Miss the sun and the beaches,” she offered. “Sometimes. I like the snow.”

“I’m sure that makes up for it.”

Karen shrugged. “Does for me. Snow makes for beautiful pictures.”

He wondered just how much time she was able to devote to photography given she spent five days a week at his restaurant working eight-hour days. She was paid well, which he was sure she appreciated, but it wasn’t her passion.

Artists thrived on passion.

“And what do your parents think now?” Dino asked.

Karen’s brow furrowed. “About me being in Chicago?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I don’t know. I haven’t talked to them in about a year now. I haven’t gone back for a visit because …” She trailed off, a sweet pink coloring her cheeks. “I just haven’t gone back.”

“Because you couldn’t afford to?” Dino asked.

Karen glanced away, taking in the quiet people milling about in the bar and enjoying their evening. He’d allowed her to pick the place, if only because the establishments he would go to would probably be mob connected and his main goal in whatever he was doing with her was to keep her far away from that mess. She didn’t need to be involved in that side of his life, even if her only involvement would be through him.

“Yeah, that’s … accurate.”

“Do they know that’s why you haven’t been back?” he asked.

Karen laughed, but this time it was bitter and sad. “Why would I tell them that? So they can say they were right—this whole plan of mine was a major fuck up and look at how spectacularly I failed at it?”

Ouch.

“You’re not failing, Karen. I know failure—this isn’t it.”

“Oh?”

Just like that, Dino felt the proverbial table turn to him.

He’d been careful throughout the date, only letting her chat about what she wanted, and doing his best to deflect any questions about his history or life without making it extremely obvious that’s what he was actually doing. She didn’t seem to mind that he didn’t want to go too in depth with his own stories, and she enjoyed talking.

Frankly, he really enjoyed listening to her.

It’d been a long time since he just talked to someone.

Since he enjoyed the company of others.

Too long, maybe.

“You know, I can see it when you sort of blink out on me, Dino,” Karen said.

Dino cleared his throat, setting his bottle of beer on the bar. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You often go inside your head. It makes me wonder what’s so interesting in there that it’s where you want to be.”

“My head is not an interesting place, believe me.”

A war zone, maybe.

Hell, likely.