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“Not really. I know things about her, of course. She was from Tamil Nadu in India and met my father while she was studying at the London School of Economics. They were married within months.” And she was dead within a year.
I don’t offer that last detail. It gives too much of the math away.
My father married my mother when she was pregnant with me.
I don’t mention that I’m fairly confident he resented her for it. Or that it sometimes makes me sad to think about what that last year of her life might have been like living with a man who can’t be bothered to hide his resentment for the people who inconvenience him. Or that what I just shared with them is the sum total of what I know about my mother.
Janie leaves her seat and, coming over beside mine, pulls me into a hug. It’s so unexpected, so sweet and kind, I’m a little choked up when she pulls back.
“Did your dad marry again? Do you have a stepmom?” she asks, sliding back into her seat and beneath Walt’s waiting arm.
“No. My mother was wife number three. And my father… Honestly, if it’s not business, it doesn’t really make his radar.”
This is the kind of conversation I do anything to avoid. It’s why I’ve always been a good listener and tend to ask more questions about others than I offer information about myself. I don’t want to have to explain about the string of nannies who were as cool and detached as my father or why the only pictures of me from when I was a kid are the ones my teachers took at school.
I don’t like feeling like the freak outcast, and the truth is, I can fake not being one with the best of them. Just so long as people don’t ask me too many questions. Like how we celebrate holidays or what family vacations we’ve taken.
I take another long swallow of my tea and then throw a hand up like some exciting idea just came to me. “Hey, what’s happening tonight? More wedding prep?”
Walt flags our server for the check and then flips Wade off when he tries to pick it up. “Everyone’s heading over to the Den tonight. What do you say?”
Wade turns to me, brow raised in question. “What do you think, Good Girl? You up for some Enderson nightlife?”
I make a show of thinking it over. “I don’t know, is this the kind of place where you’ll be coming home with your shirt in tatters again?”
He gives me a grin-wink combo that’s probably been setting panties on fire since the first time he stumbled on it. “Not unless you’re the one tearing it off.”
Chapter 11
Harlow
That afternoon, Wade takes me to the local bookstore—anactualstore dedicated solely tobooks!—and we spend an hour and a half talking quietly within the narrow aisles about our favorite reads. Mine are all so outdated, I’m embarrassed. But Wade just nods, calling them classics and commenting on what he thought of one title or another himself.
He’s a James Rollins fan, and when I admit I haven’t read for pleasure in years, he buys me a paperback of my own. And as if that isn’t enough to win Fake Boyfriend of the Century, then he takes me back to his parents’ place where he hangs up the hammock so we can spend a couple hours reading together.
Grace brings us lemonade before she and Bill take off for something in the city. And Kelsey decides it’s time to do some yard work and makes a big show of wrestling God-only-knows-what out of the shed.
And Wade… This guy is so completely unexpected.
So sweet.
So comfortable to rest my head on while I devour the first few chapters.
So adorable when he wants to know where I am in the story and how I like it.
So confusing, because he’s so completely different from the men I usually date… But every time he gives me that smile that lasts a little longer than I expect it to, the butterflies start up in my belly and I wonder what it would be like, if just for this one week, I could be different too.
Later, when we’re back at the hotel getting ready to hit the Den, Walt texts, begging off for the bar because Janie’s cousin needed an emergency sitter.
“Do they need any help?” I ask, fastening my gold hoop earring.
“Nah, they’re good,” Wade says from his side of the wall. “Just can’t make it tonight. What do you think, we could stay in and—”
I turn to where Wade’s standing in the archway between our rooms. He’s dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a black shirt that’s open at the top and has to be made-to-measure the way it fits around his biceps, chest, and shoulders without hanging like a sail around his abs.
He looks really good.
And he was saying something.
