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“I was just about to leave a family dinner.”
“Shit.” He shakes his head. “Are your folks in town?”
Surprised that he knows that they don’t live in New York, I shake my head. “No. How did you know…”
“That they live in Buffalo?” he interrupts with a grin.
“Yeah.”
“Pen,” he says it like it’s a foregone conclusion that I should have been aware of. “She mentioned that you were born and raised there. She said you have a brother, too? Draco, right? That’s a hell of a cool name.”
Penny helped herself to one of my photo albums when I was changing clothes for our dress shopping excursion yesterday. When she asked about my parents, I explained my journey to New York.
I don’t bother mentioning to Daxton that Pen spend a little extra time staring at a photo of my older brother.
“My dad named him.” I chuckle. “It was after a friend of his from high school I think.”
Dax nods. “Do they come to New York often?”
“No.” I shake my head, sensing that this line of questioning is related to his mom and his sister being in New York. “When’s your mom going home?”
“I’m not sure,” he says. “I like having them around. My dad is flying in for a few days at the end of the week.”
“You’ve missed them since you moved here, haven’t you?”
He nods softly, sipping from the mug in front of him. “I didn’t know a soul when I stepped off that plane a few months ago. I’ve made friends since, but there’s something about family.”
“When I moved here from Buffalo after high school, my brother was in New York, and my cousin too,” I tell him. “I was really lucky.”
“I’ll say.”
“Your brother moved back home though, didn’t he?”
Pen strikes again. She asked me that question as she was flipping through my photo album.
“He’s taking over our dad’s carpentry business.”
“That’s a specific skill set.” He laughs. “I don’t think I’ve ever picked up a hammer.”
“Same,” I quip.
He wrings his hands together. “Back to why I asked you to meet me.”
“Right.” I take a drink from my mug but the coffee is already cold so I push it aside.
“I want to pick up a special gift for Pen.” He looks toward the doorway of the café when it opens. “Something more than flowers or chocolates. Something that screams I’m glad I met you.”
It’s a sweet gesture that I know she’ll appreciate.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any ideas you could throw my way.” He tosses me a pleading look. “It doesn’t have to be expensive. It would be better if it wasn’t.”
I laugh along with him. “I hear you. New York is not a cheap place to live.”
“Exactly.” He drops his gaze to his watch. “Will you give it some thought and let me know if you come up with anything?”
“Sure,” I agree even though I don’t know Penny well enough to gauge what she likes beyond a replica of her late grandmother’s knitted wedding dress.
“You have my number.” He points to where my phone is sitting on the table. “Text me if you think of anything, okay?”
