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“B minus!” He turned them around the corner down in the direction of a taco truck he knew of. “My delivery was spot-on.”
“Mmm, yes.” She leaned into him as the wind kicked up. “But you should have saved it until after dinner, once you had me back at your place and were plying me with drinks.”
“Sounds underhanded.”
“Only if I wasn’t planning on getting naked with you already.” She tilted her head back to look at him, her lashes seeming impossibly long against the blue of her eyes. “If I let you ply me with drinks, it’s already a done deal.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He stomped down on his body’s reaction to her words and her nearness. It might be sexy as hell to press her against the nearest wall and go for a repeat of their first kiss, but that wasn’t the goal. It couldn’t be the goal. “What did you want to be when you grew up?”
“Travel agent.” She made a face. “Right up until I realized most travel agents don’t actually travel that much. There’s nothing quite as agonizing as planning someone else’s trip over and over again while stuck in a crappy office surrounded by four beige walls.”
He was inclined to agree, though the travel bug had never bitten Aaron. “You were just down in the Caribbean not too long ago, right?”
She missed a step and shot him a look. “Right. I forgot. You and Roman are friends.” If anything, her expression became more agonized. “Allie’s going to want a double date before too long—mark my words. And once she decides on something, no one in their right mind gets in her way.”
A double date didn’t sound like the hell she seemed to consider it, but he chose to keep that opinion to himself. “She’s good for Roman. He’s been more relaxed since they started dating than I’ve ever seen him.”
“Regular sex will do that to a man,” she muttered.
“And to a woman.”
She chose not to comment on that, which was just as well. They reached the taco truck and got in line behind a mother and her two kids. Because they were standing so close, Aaron could feel the tension bleeding back into Becka’s body until she stood rigid against him. He studied her, trying to figure out what the issue was. The mother? The woman was in her midtwenties, and though she looked tired, she was handling herself well and both her young children were relatively well behaved. They collected their tacos and disappeared down the street, leaving Becka staring after them.
He bided his time, waiting until they’d ordered, collected their food and eaten it at one of the benches not too far from the truck. Only when she crumpled her paper napkin did he sit back and say, “What was it about her that bothered you so much?”
She gave him the courtesy of not pretending she didn’t know what he meant. “I don’t know if you guessed it, but my family life was hardly idyllic growing up. Lucy was the bright spot, of course. She still is. But my parents were a hot mess from day one, and they only seemed to get worse over time. My mom never would have done something as simple as that.” She waved her hand in the direction the mother had gone. “That’s sad, right? I’d more or less made my peace with it, but the whole impending-motherhood thing has the ghosts of my past banging on my closet door again.” She shook her head. “Sorry. I’m a mess.”
“No apologies necessary.” He took her hand and laced his fingers with hers. “Were they...”
“Abusive? No, nothing like that.” She stared at the people walking past, but she didn’t take her hand from his. “They were just selfish assholes who were more wrapped up in themselves and their petty dramas than they could ever be in their children. I don’t think they ever planned on staying together, but Lucy was an oops baby and the only thing to do at the time was get married. I don’t think my mom ever even wanted kids, but one thing led to another and then she had two.”
Not too difficult to read between the lines. Benign neglect was one thing, but it sounded as if Becka had been reminded on a near constant basis that she wasn’t wanted, that perhaps her parents’ lives would be so much better if she wasn’t in them. He didn’t tell her he was sorry, didn’t offer her sympathy she might mistake for pity. “I’m glad you had Lucy.”
“Me, too.” She finally looked at him. “She was always there. For nearly every game, for every important event. Even after she went to college, she was never too far or too busy to be there for me. I don’t deserve her.”
