“Yeah. Everything’s fine.”
“You sure?”
She took a deep breath. “Yes. It’s just... I’ve never had anyone over for dinner before. Like this. Like...”
“A family?”
She hesitated, then gave a half shrug, half nod.
“How do you think it went?” he asked.
She looked at him for a minute, into those beautiful eyes. “It went well,” she acknowledged.
His mouth tugged up on one side. Irresistible, that’s what he was. “That’s a good thing, right?”
“Yes.” She smiled a little herself, and he kissed her, then, a long, deep kiss that homed in on her insides, making her feel soft and weak and burning with energy at the same time. Then he stopped, touching her bottom lip with one finger.
“And next week, my mom will be getting married, and you and Davey and I will be together again. With Colleen and the rest of my family. Will that be okay?”
She hesitated. The mental picture was a little like dinner with the Holland family...lovely, but a little on the terrifying side, too. “That will be okay.”
“Maybe something you could get used to.”
Her heart seemed to swell. “We should do the, um, the thing. On the computer.”
He smiled. “Okay, boss, show me what you got.”
She got off his lap and sat in the chair next to him, opened her laptop. “I wrote up some talking points for you.”
“I thought we agreed I’d just sit there and look hot.”
She laughed. “No. The thing is, the investors aren’t investing in your company. They’re investing in you.”
“Great. A grumpy chef who doesn’t really like people all that much.”
“You’re not really fooling anyone, Connor,” she said. “You’re not that grumpy. You think you’re a big tough guy, but you’re a big softie. Everyone knows it, too.”
“No, they don’t. I’m incredibly tough and very intimidating.”
“Heard you cried when you saw your niece.”
“I’m gonna muzzle that Colleen one of these days, new mother or not.” He gave her a long look. “You ever think about having kids?”
The question was like an icicle through her chest. See, this was why she didn’t want a relationship. These kind of heartbreaking talks. “No,” she said.
“Why is that? Because of Dave?”
“Why do you call him that? Everyone calls him Davey.”
“Davey’s a boy’s name. He’s twenty-six.”
“He’s a boy. He always will be.”
“Why don’t you want kids?” he asked.
She folded her arms in front of her. “I don’t think I’d be a very good mother.”
“Are you kidding? You’re incredible with your brother. And I’ve seen you with Noah Cooper. You get that dazed, happy look—”
“I like kids. I just don’t want them.”“Why?”
Fine. He wanted to have this talk now, fine. “Because then I’d have to tell them what I did. How I am. Was. Whatever.” They won’t want to have friends visit. They’ll dread every time there’s a parent thing at school. The other parents will talk about me, and their kids will make fun of mine, and my kids will get into fights to defend me, and then resent me for it. “They’d...be embarrassed.” Ashamed. “I don’t want to do that to a kid.”
He tilted his head. “What do you think you did, Jess?”
From the backyard came the yips from Lady Fluffy, the deeper barking of Chico, Davey’s voice egging them on to catch the squeaky toy.
Connor hadn’t looked away. She shrugged. “School slut, for one.”
“Jess, you’re too—”
“Well, I was. And that kind of reputation doesn’t die. And then there’s the white trash stuff. Trailer park, drunk parents, all that.”
“Everyone’s got something in their closets, honey.” The word made her heart hurt. “You know that.”
She looked at the table. Tell him. Yeah. It was time. She cleared her throat. “I was also my mom’s bartender.” She looked him in the eye and squeezed the ring on her thumb hard. “I used to make her drinks. I could make a vodka tonic before I could read.”
Connor took her hand. She took it back.
“Jess, you were a little kid.”
“Not that little. Not for long.” She paused. “I’d mix her a drink every day when I came home from school, and I’d keep them coming all afternoon and evening till she went to bed or passed out.”
“That’s not your fault.”
“I did it when she was pregnant, too.”
Connor closed his eyes for a second, then looked at her again.
So now he knew. She’d made Davey the way he was. Yeah, yeah, she’d been a kid. But she’d been an old soul even when she was seven. She knew it wasn’t good that Mom was drinking so much.
“My mother was a sad person,” she said briskly. “She was happier with a few drinks in her. I knew it wasn’t healthy, and I probably even knew that it wasn’t good for...” Her voice cracked a little, but she forced herself to keep going. “For the baby, but I did it. Until I was maybe thirteen, I made sure my mom had plenty of booze.”
“I repeat. You were a little kid.”
“I was little when I was four. I knew better by the time I was seven. So putting me in charge of kids... I don’t see that happening, Connor, and I know you want them, and I think you should really reconsider being with me. I don’t know what keeps bringing you back, but I honestly think you’d be better off with someone else.”
There. She said it. The words hung between them like a wall.
The front door opened, and Ned came in with Sarah Cooper. “Hi, Jess,” she said. “Hey, Connor! How are you? Heard you’re an uncle!”
“Hey,” Connor said.
“Is it okay if we hang out here?” Ned asked. “Watch a movie, make some popcorn? Levi keeps giving me these looks, and I’m scared, frankly. I mean, the guy married my aunt. You’d think he’d cut me some slack.”
“He keeps talking about guns whenever Ned’s around,” Sarah said. “Such a pain in the ass.”
“That’d be great,” Connor said. “Can you watch Davey?”
“Sure,” Ned said.
“Hang on a sec,” Jessica said. No one had asked her anything.
“I would really like to go somewhere and finish this conversation,” Connor said, rather forcefully.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Ned said. “You kids need to talk, you just run along. We got this.”
And so it was that five minutes later, Jess was sitting in the passenger seat of Connor’s truck, being driven across town like a kid being escorted to the principal’s office.
He was mad. So what? So was she, for no good reason. He didn’t say a word. Barely even looked at her. Also, she felt sick.
She’d never told anyone about giving her mom drinks. About how she’d been afraid that Jolene would go away forever, because she’d been so sad, how Jess had tried so hard to be good and fun and helpful...and how she knew that alcohol made her mother feel better. How sometimes, she’d make her mother a drink without even being asked.