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“I honestly don’t really.” He placed the bottle beside me.
“What?” I turned to him.
He looked at the ceilings. “I didn’t buy this house for me. I bought it for my mother. This was where she worked during the summer. I would sit on this kitchen island, and she would be on her hands and feet, washing the floors. When I offered to help, she told me to do my homework if I wanted to help her. She worked day and night here until her disease wouldn’t let her. The former owners moved to France, and I bought it when I was twenty. They didn’t recognize me and didn’t remember my mother. I come here whenever I want to be reminded of her and everything she went through for me. Part of me wishes I could tell her it’s her house now, and she should kick her feet up.”
“So that’s why, when your brother Arty threw a party here for people looking to support themselves through other people, you were so pissed off.” I could only imagine how that must have looked for him and why his aunt had wanted to make sure Arty apologized. I felt guilty for even attending. But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met him. “I’m not sure your mother would have liked me.”
“Why?” he asked, reaching for a glove to open the over door and pulling out the food. “I think she would have.”
“No.” I brushed my hair behind my ears. “The woman who keeps running away and coming back to her son, proving not only does she have personal issues but commitment issues as well. Believe me, you could do way better. Even I want you to do better.”
It hurt me to admit that.
He handed me a fork, placing the chicken breast with shaved brussels sprouts next to me. It looked and smelled amazing.
“Is that true?” He forked a brussel sprout and took a bite.
“Is what true?” I asked, following his lead but with a lot more chicken in my bite.
“Even you want me to do better than you?”
“Don’t you think so?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t have texted you. You see yourself as this failure, and I see a beautiful woman fighting to do what she loves again.” He fought my fork away for another piece of chicken, grinning as he took his
prize. “I wonder which one of our views of the real you is right?”
“You don’t think you should be with some beautiful, bright, bubbly woman who has big dreams and an even bigger heart? A women who doesn’t come with baggage?”
“You just described a unicorn.”
I laughed. “What?”
“We all have scars, Felicity. It’s a hazard of living. Any person who is bright and bubbly all the time is probably hiding something.”
“Easy for you to say as guy. We women can’t let our scars show because we’re told no one will want us if we do.”
“Is that what women really think?” He paused, shaking his head. “That explains why there are so many of those goddamn scripts coming across my desk.”
“What?”
“I don’t have time to go through all the scripts that are in production at the company. But I noticed the romance revue recently brought in shitloads of money. I asked for the scripts. It was the same, damaged alpha guys and the sweet naïve women who make them love again. I didn’t understand, but I guess now I do. You really think no one will love you if you’re the one broken?”
I kept eating until the thunder was so loud I jumped. Glancing around, I shook my head, grinning.
“You want to stand in the rain again, don’t you?” His eyebrow rose.
“So bad. But I don’t want to jinx it and make myself sick this time.”
“You don’t have to. Come on.” He clasped my hand, and we ran from the kitchen through the halls, going right, then left, then down the stairs at the back.
“Theo, where are we going!” I laughed, holding tighter to his arm.
He stopped at two white double French doors. The glass was frosted, so I couldn’t see anything inside.
“What is this?”
“You said you wanted to stand under the rain. This is the best we can do until after tomorrow.” He pushed open the doors, and the first thing I saw was roses of every different color. I glanced at the ceiling. It was all glass. We were in a greenhouse. It was cool and dark, the only light coming from the windows, which was barely any at all. The rain came down all around us, and it felt like we were in the heart of the storm.
