“What can I get ya?” she asked Maddox, holding onto her pen and notepad.
“Iced tea for me,” Joss told the waitress loudly, watching the chick now openly ogling Maddox. She shook her head and glanced at the man of the hour, asking, “How about a medium pizza with all the toppings?”
He nodded. “A pint, too.”
“Perfect,” the waitress practically purred at him, gathering their menus in a way that put her cleavage far too close to Maddox’s face. “I’ll be back with those drinks shortly.”
When the waitress leaned away, Joss frowned at her, but she noticed his eyes were on her, not on the waitress’s girls. Glad for that, and as the waitress took off to fetch their orders, Joss set her focus on Maddox, intent to peel back his complicated layers. In a non-threating, non-pushy way, of course. “So,” she said, lacing her fingers together on top of the table. “Tell me more about your family.”
“Why?” He leaned back against the booth’s shiny red cushion and folded his arms.
“Uh, because I want to know more about you?” she scoffed, shaking her head at him. “Is that really so weird or so terrible?”
He regarded her a minute, obviously deciding if he wanted to allow this to happen. Apparently, he did, since he answered, “I’m an only child and pretty much on my own. I have an uncle who lives in Vancouver. I think I saw him maybe three times growing up, and haven’t seen him in the last ten years at all.”
“And what about your parents?” she asked.
“There was only my father and me.”
The waitress returned with their drinks then, and Joss ignored Ms. Googly Eyes, keeping the focus right where she wanted it. On Maddox. When the waitress left the table again, Joss asked, “You didn’t have a mom growing up?”
“No.”
She noted the tension around his eyes, even if she could tell he fought hard not to react to the question. Now, wondering if she should leave this type of questioning alone, she pulled her drink closer to her and held the straw, taking a sip of her iced tea. Once she’d swallowed the cool, sweet tea, she decided to press on. “Feel free to tell me to stuff it, but do you mind telling me what happened to her?”
Maddox took hold of his frosty beer glass, and before taking a sip, he replied, “She left when I was four and never came back.” Then he downed a quarter of his beer.
Joss bristled, disbelieving of what she heard. To leave your child? How could a mother do that? There had to be more to the story. “Why did she leave? Did your parent’s divorce or something?”
He regarded her again and then sighed, lowering his glass to the table. “My father never told me why.”
“Really?” That made no sense. “Your father never shared with you why your mother just picked up and left and never came back?”
“We’re men,” was his dry explanation as he wiped the frothy beer off his lips. “We don’t sit around and talk like you and I are doing now. Which only reminds me why I don’t go for dinner with women, by the way.”
She chuckled, not deterred. “Oh, come on, it’s not so bad.”
He arched that left brow at her. “Discussing the past only leads to memories of things you can’t change, so why even go there?” He had a point, so she stayed silent as he continued. “Besides, my father hated her. Why would I bring her up?”
Interesting. She took a sip of her drink again, studying him. Maddox was tough and brooding, all muscles and confidence, not a hint of sadness about what had happened to him during his younger years. He also didn’t pity himself or have any serious emotional scars she could see. Regardless of the childhood he’d been handed by having a shitty mother, he’d created a pretty damn good life for himself.
Though realizing that also made her conclude something else. “I guess I can see now why you hate commitment.”
His left eyebrow arched again. “How is what I told you related at all to commitment?”
“Of course, it’s related,” she said, waiting for a couple to stride by their table before adding, “Being in a committed relationship isn’t important to you because you’ve never seen what happens when two people choose to love each other forever.”
She paused, watching his reaction to what she’d said.
His jaw muscles clenched twice, telling her the subject was a touchy one. “I take it you have seen that?” he asked.
She sighed, glad she hadn’t overstepped, and circled the straw in her glass around an ice cube. “Yup, I have those parents. They’re still grossly in love, even after twenty-eight years of marriage.”