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"Drunk driver plowed into my mom and stepfather's car." His gaze dropped to his empty plate for a heartbeat and he clamped his jaw tight before looking back up, a worried anxiety turning his whiskey-colored eyes darker. "My stepfather died. My mom suffered a complex leg fracture, among other things. There was surgery, immobility and then physical therapy. Now she's almost one-hundred percent, which means she's six seconds away from threatening me with a shotgun to go out, find my own place, and hurry up and give her some grandbabies." He finished with a grin that did nothing to eliminate the worry lines carved into his forehead.
"Are you the only child?"
"I'm in the middle of six and the only boy. None of us are married or even looking that way, and it's making her crazier than skillet full of rattlesnakes." This time his smile reached all the way to his eyes.
"Where are you sisters?" Again she broke the dating rules and moved the conversation beyond her date and his many impressive accomplishments.
Isaac didn't seem to care. His whole body relaxed. "They're scattered from here to Alaska. There's Ariella, who flies tourists around in Alaska. Meira and Dalia—forever known as The Twins—run a dude ranch in Montana. Leah just opened up a business selling pot in Colorado. The baby, Shoshana, is about to get her Masters in architecture."
The pride he had in his close-knit family was obvious, and a mix of jealousy and bittersweet regret squeezed her lungs tighter with each breath. It hurt deep in that part of herself she blocked out as much as possible, so she did what she always did. She plastered a pageant-worthy smile on her face and kept the focus off herself.
"I'm trying to picture you growing up with sisters."
"I can do a double French braid in less than three minutes and I've bought more tampons than a thirty-one-year-old man should ever admit to."
Just the mental image of him with his cowboy boots, tight jeans and muscles standing in the middle of the tampon aisle at the grocery store short-wired her brain.
"So what about you?" he asked.
"It was just my mom, Amelia and me." She scrambled for another question to ask about him to return the conversation back to proper lane but her brain wasn't cooperating.
"That's it?" he asked, mock outrage ringing through his words. "No embarrassing stories? Come on. I confessed to buying tampons. If Lash ever found out, I'd never hear the end of it, and eventually, I'd end up with a truck covered in tampons. You know that was a deep dark secret. You owe me the goods."
Shoved mentally off balance by his demand, she didn't think first before letting out the first thing to pop in head. “I stuffed my bra until I finally got boobs."
His focus dipped to her breasts before lifting back up and shaking his head. "Nope. Not good enough."
Secrets? Oh no. She wasn't about to spill those. Embarrassing information? The man already knew she'd tried to blackmail Taz by pretending they were still married. Did it really get any worse than that? She rubbed her temple, the same spot where—
"I got a concussion in a freak baton-twirling accident," she blurted out.
His eyes widened and he settled back in his seat. "Now this I want to hear."
"I was warming up before I was supposed to go on stage at the Miss Garden State Teen competition. I was warming up doing thumb tosses with Tour Jete—"
"Tour whats?" His face was screwed up in question.
It took a second for her brain to make the translation. "So I was tossing the baton up in the air really high and then, while it was in the air, leaping from one foot and making a half turn in the air before landing on the opposite foot."
"That sounds dangerous."
"It can be." Even worse, when her mother was a one thousand on the ten-point pageant mom scale. "I don't know if you've ever been backstage at a pageant, but it's hectic. That night, I thought I'd found a good spot away from the action with enough space to practice, but I wasn't the only one who'd been looking for a little quiet. Another girl found me. I heard a noise, lost my focus for half a second, and the baton came down right on my head. I went down hard."
"So much for winning that crown."
"Oh no. Once I remembered my name again and pounded back some aspirin for my aching head, I grabbed my baton, ignited the flammable ends, did my routine—making sure to always catch the baton in the middle since I was seeing three of them—and won that crown. After that I insisted my mom take me to the ER."
Something that looked like a mix of awe and confusion crossed his face. "You must have fought her tooth and nail to stay in the lineup that night."
"Something like that." More like she'd fought to not go on stage, but she'd lost that battle—just like she'd lost most of the ones she'd waged against her mother until Tamara had finally landed her first sugar daddy. "Actually, the exact opposite. She said she wasn't going to lose out on the investment for the flammable batons and pageant dresses because I was clumsy."
He let out a low whistle. "Wow."
"Yeah." The entire trip to the emergency room had been filled with her mother talking about how this crown was going to be the one to really make a difference in their lives.
"Where is she now?"
"No clue." She hadn't looked back after crossing the GW Bridge into New York. Maybe she should have—maybe she still should—but there were too many times when her mother's voice echoed loud enough in her head to make her think the woman was still beside her, demanding to know when she was going to be bringing money in instead of taking it all out.
