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“Yes.” Her body, already at a slow simmer, started to bubble.
“Then fire away with your questions, but why don’t you come over here” He patted the couch. “I may need a hug or something.”
“Oh, that’s so not a good idea.” She laughed.
“I think it’s an excellent idea. I’ll need you to comfort me.”
“I think I should ask the questions from here.” She wanted to snuggle against his side and feel his large chest move as he breathed but if she got that close to him, they wouldn’t be talking. She tucked her feet under her, making her less likely to move over by him.
“I think you’d be more comfortable right here.” He patted the couch again.
“I don’t think comfortable is the right word for how I’ll feel sitting next to you.”
“Oh, come on. I’ll behave, but I want you close when you make me relive all those horrible experiences from my childhood.”
“Don’t even try to make me feel bad about this. I won. You lost. If you’d won, you wouldn’t change what you had planned.”
“We’d both want to do what I picked. I don’t want to do this.”
“Too bad. It’ll be good for you. Tell me about your childhood.”
“Fine. I lived with my mom until I was eight when she OD’d. I never knew my dad. After that I spent the next ten years in different foster homes. I went to college—”
“Stop. You’re listing facts. I know all that. It’s in almost every article written about you. I want more than that.”
“That’s my childhood. My life. What else do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me about how this poor little boy became the man I see before me today. Confident. Successful. Driven.”
“I don’t know.” He took another drink. “I guess, my life changed when I met Merri. I was in junior high and already on my way to trouble. I was running drugs and barely even going to class.” His face softened. “Until she transferred into my school. She looked like an angel on the outside but damn she was mean and prickly on the inside.” He smiled softly. “I’d never met anyone like her and for me it was love at first smackdown.”
“First smackdown?” She tried not to be jealous. She was glad he’d found Merri but the look on his face made Alison’s gut churn with envy.
“Yeah. I thought I was so cool, but she was having none of it. She wanted nothing to do with me and that made me want her more.”
“What happened? I know you went to college together. Were the two of you dating?”
“No. Merri and I were just friends all through junior high and high school. I was in love with her, but she dated this guy, Pete, until we graduated. College was my chance to move out of the friend-zone, but she fell hard for my roommate Tobias.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. That must’ve broken your heart.” She felt bad for teenage Harker, but she was also happy because if he and Merri had dated, they’d probably be married now.
“Yeah but”—he tossed back his drink—“if it weren’t for her I’d probably be dead or in jail by now.”
“No, you’d probably be some mafia or drug kingpin.”
“Maybe.” He chuckled as he refilled his glass.
“How did she help you to change?”
He sipped his drink, his eyes lost in the past. “She wouldn’t have anything to do with me the way I was, so I changed.”
“Why?” Only women who looked like Merri had the ability to make men want to change, to become better. She’d seen it her entire life and she’d always been both fascinated and envious of their magic.
“Because even though she berated me and wouldn’t date me she’d share her lunch with me, and she stuck up for me with the teachers. She was the first person who ever had my back.”
“The teachers?”
“A lot of them had already written me off as not worth their time. The area was poor. I wasn’t the first lost cause they’d seen.”
