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A broader smile returned to his face. “Yeah, that sounds about right. It was love at first sight for me.”
Not that I didn't believe in that, but it seemed too perfect. “Well, maybe for you, but not for me. I blew you off, and we didn't hook up until later.”
He chuckled. “You resisted me, but I was persistent, very persistent.”
“Yes, that sounds like you,” I said. “And two months later, I agreed to go out with you.”
He put his wine glass down. “And we’ve been a pretty steady thing since then.”
“What do you meanpretty steady?” I asked. “I wouldn’t spend months dating a guy who wasn’t committed to the relationship.”
“You're right, Sunshine. A very steady couple since then.” Now it sounded better, more realistic for a girl like me, but it was worrisome that I’d had to correct him on something so simple.
I snagged a piece of bread from the basket. “Liam, tell me about your family. I know you’re a Covington, but that’s about it.” Not exactly the truth, but I wanted to hear it all from him.
He shifted in his seat. “That will take a while. Let's see… My mother married Wendell Covington when I was young, which explains my last name being Quigley. But I consider myself a Covington nonetheless. Wendell Covington was the only real father I ever had.”
“What happened to him, your biological father, I mean?”
He looked down at the table and paused. “He was never a father. I think of him as a sperm donor, and I’ve built my whole life around not growing up to be him. The man was abusive to both me and Mom. One night I tried to stop him from hitting her. After a dozen stitches in the emergency room, we got a hotel room for the night. We left the next day while he was at work, and I haven't seen him since.” His voice conveyed both hurt and horror.
I couldn't imagine enduring something like that. My family had always been loving and supportive, and I couldn't understand how a family could be anything else.
It must have been awful for him, and his mother. I waited silently for him to process his feelings and continue.
“When Mom married Wendell, everything changed. He was my real father. He taught me what family was all about.” He choked on the last few words and took a moment.
I had learned in my online research that Wendell Covington had passed away, the victim of an automobile accident, so I didn’t ask any questions about that sadness. Clearly, Liam had endured physical and emotional traumas much worse than anything I’d experienced. My breakup with Matt had been angry and hurtful, but nowhere near the devastation of losing a parent, or the horror of an abusive upbringing.
“Anyway, I have an older brother, Bill,” Liam said after a moment. “Who, as you may know, runs the family business. I also have two younger brothers and a younger sister. My sister, Katie, went to business school and is in the process of getting her CPA now in Los Angeles.”
I finished chewing a piece of bread. “I hear that's difficult.”
“It’s never stopped Katie before. She’s very determined when she sets a goal for herself. Patrick, my middle brother, is working in LA. He did negotiations and acquisitions for Covington on the west coast before setting up a consulting business. The youngest of us, Stephen, pursued a law degree of all things, and has moved up to San Francisco with his wife, Emma.”
Liam paused as the waiter approached with a tray. Our salads had arrived.
“So you don't get to see your family much?” I asked.
“No, that’s the price of venturing out of California. What about you? You said you grew up west of here?”
I stabbed at my salad. “I grew up in Greenfield, which is at the western end of the state, a little below the Vermont border. If you take Route Two out through Concord, you'll get there in a little over two hours.”
“A country girl then?” he asked.
“Not anymore. I went to college at Brown and have been up here ever since. You couldn't get me back to Greenfield now. I've been converted to a city girl.”
“And your parents?”
“Both alive and kicking in Greenfield. They'll never leave that town,” I lamented.
“The girl you were with the other night,” he said, “your sister, Viv, is she your only sibling?”
“Just the two of us. Viv is a year and a half younger than me. She lives in Cambridge, which allows us to get together pretty regularly.”
He chuckled. “To pick up strange men?”
“No. Usually we’re lamenting the lack of good men in this town. But not anymore, now that I’ve met you.”
