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I snorted out a laugh. “Also a contender for that Top Ten list.”
“Did you get your work done?”
“Yeah. But the viper will have a whole new list for me tomorrow.”
“She seems like a real bitch of a boss.”
I scoffed and took a sip of the red wine Wes had poured me. “You know, it’s ironic. I always wanted to be just like her. I saw Liz as someone who took no shit, outworked everyone and made hard decisions. Do you know that when she’s interviewing a woman for a job, she pries for information about whether she has kids or wants them, and she’s less likely to hire them if she thinks someone will need maternity leave or use all their vacation days?”
“That’s fucked.”
“It really is. But I was so stupid. I thought it made sense. Now that I’m on the other side of it, I get it. Women shouldn’t have to choose between their career and their family.”
I took another drink of my wine as Wes said, “Totally agree.”
“You know you’re missing the hockey highlights, right?” I said, my gaze on the TV screen.
“I do, and it’s killing me. I’m trying to be all sensitive and shit, and listen to you.”
Rolling my eyes, I said, “Watch your highlights and I’ll eat. We can talk after.”
Five minutes later, when I was no longer ravenous, I poured a second glass of wine, and Wes’s attention was focused on me again.
“Did your mom work?” I asked him. “You never mention your family.”
“Yeah, she did. My parents were both attorneys, and they mostly did medical malpractice. They busted ass, made a shit ton of money and retired when my dad was fifty-five and my mom was fifty-three. They go back and forth between London and Miami now.”
“Really? Do you ever visit?”
He shrugged. “About once a year I go see them and once a year they come here.”
“It doesn’t sound like you guys are close.”
“Nah, we’re not. But they’d be there for me if I needed anything. They’re proud of me and all, just doing their own thing.” He looked at me intently, a charged silence surrounding us, making me wonder if he was going to kiss me or keep talking. “What about you? You’ve never mentioned your family, either.”
I sighed softly. “There’s not much to mention. My dad left my mom when I was two and we never saw him again. My mom wasn’t the best mom, but she wasn’t the worst, either. My brother and I kept our heads down and got good grades, because we wanted to get out of the little town where we were born in Iowa. Our mom died of cancer when he was twenty and I was eighteen.”
“I’m sorry, Hadley.”
“Thanks. It was a long time ago.”
“Do you still keep in touch with your brother?”
“Yes, when I can. He’s a Navy SEAL, so he has to go off-grid a lot, and I never really know where he is. But I’m crazy proud of him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Griff. Short for Griffin.”
“Does he know about Ben and Lauren? And about us getting the kids?”
I nodded. “We email pretty often. It works better since he’s in other countries and his hours are different than mine.”
“Hope I can meet him sometime.”
“I’m sure you will. I told him I’ll send him pictures from the party.” I picked up my phone from the couch. “Which reminds me, the photographer sent the pictures.”
I opened the email and scooted closer to Wes so we could look at them together. He put an arm around me and I snuggled in, my heart pounding from the intimacy. It had been a long time since I’d snuggled with a man. Like years. The men I’d slept with in the past were just hit-it-and-quit-it types, and honestly, I’d been ready to quit them before the hitting was even over.
“That’s awesome,” Wes said when I opened the first photo.
It was Annalise posing with all the Mavericks players who’d dressed up as Avengers for her party. She was beaming, and so were they.
I scrolled through the pictures, Wes and I oohing, aahing and laughing at most of them. Then I got to the first one of the two of us with Benny and Annalise. I was holding Benny and Wes had his arm around Annalise as she smiled, her cake off to the side.
We were both silent as we took in the picture. I was bombarded with emotions. It was supposed to be Ben and Lauren in that picture with their babies. The four of us looked like a family, and even though we lived as a family every day, it was another thing to see us posed like one in a photo.
“Damn,” Wes whispered.
I blew out a breath and set my phone aside. “I didn’t expect to feel so…I don’t know, sad, I guess.”
