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“You remember mine?” He asked.
“Yeah, lilacs. I had them at the front of my store…”
“Before you thought I was a cheating bastard?” He interrupted. I blushed from embarrassment. I still regretted thinking so badly of him so fast, but I could not help it.
I was glad he wasn’t, anyway. Though it did not change that I still could not be with him. I was too early in the game to mess things up for a man that isn’t guaranteed to be in my life.
“Um, I guess. I’ll put them back up, they looked good up there.”
He grinned and sipped his sweet tea, which was mostly sugar.
“So, your dad, are you guys close?” Was he trying to get to know me? I wasn’t sure I could open up to him, but I think I already had.
“Yeah, I don’t see him too often though. Just the holidays.” I could not tell him how different he was since my mother died. I looked exactly like her, maybe it was just too hard for him.
I ordered a chicken finger basket, and Tristan got a BLT.
“What about your parents?” I asked. He arched a brow.
“You really don’t know who I am, do you?”
I racked my brain. He wasn’t an actor. And he wasn’t on any house wife shows and that’s all I watched, so I could not place him.
“No. School me.” I shrugged.
“My parents, the Cox’s, own half the real estate in the state. They probably own the building you lease. And I used to own one of the largest tech startups of the century before I sold it for three-and half billion dollars.” My eyes widened on their own accord.
That was a lot to take in at once. Basically, he was old money rich and new money rich. And people usually know who he is.
“Oh…why did you sell it?” He shrugged.
“It was always meant to be a startup. The revenue got to a certain point and then I just wasn’t in it anymore. But my parents and I are relatively close. I have a sister, Natalie. She’s a psychologist.” I smiled softly, he beamed when he talks about his family.
“Does she try to make you her patient a lot?” He laughed from his belly.
“Yeah, all the fucking tine.” He was annoyed, but not so much because it’s his sister. It was sweet.
When our food arrived, I ate up greedily. He would still ask me stuff—when I opened my shop, why I did. But I would not talk about my mom yet. It was still too hard. But my curiosity was eating me alive. I sipped the rest of my coffee, there was no alcohol so it served as my liquid courage.
“Who is Vivian?”
He stared back at me, a coldness washing over his otherwise happy green eyes. I saw his throat bob as he swallowed with a sharp inhale. Maybe I overstepped, I averted my gaze to my crumbed plate. I did not think he would answer me.
“She’s my ex-wife.”
I suspected that. I don’t know how it made me feel, honestly. He had a life before me.
“You were married?” Dumb question, but I was blanking for good responses. He nodded.
“Yeah, for ten years.”
I exhaled.
“That’s a long time…can I ask what happened? If you don’t mind, of course.”
His tongue pressed against his cheek, his jaw gritting. I was immediately distracted by the strength of his jaw. As his fists clenched, the veins of his arm protruded against the fine hairs. This woman really hurt him. It made my blood boil, why? I had known him two days, collectively. But for a month I have pictured him, imagined him, built him up as a person. I attached myself to a maybe, and now here he was. I told myself it was natural. That I wasn’t crazy, overthinking things.
“She cheated on me. With her optometrist.” I stifled a gasp.
