“Actually…you look familiar to me, too.”
The wheels in Elliott’s head were turning as he continued to try to figure out where he knew me from.
God, this was nuts.
But I needed to know.
I looked him straight in the eyes. “You look like someone I met once in the Hamptons. At The Heights, actually. Maybe you know him?” I took one last deep breath and spit out the rest. “His name is Harlan.”
Elliott’s narrowed eyes grew to the size of saucers as a look of recognition finally hit. Then the sleaziest smile spread across his face.
“Gia—you came back for seconds?”“You sure everything is okay?” Gia had seemed a little off ever since the party last night. She was quiet on the drive home, and when I initiated fooling around—something that she never refuted and often initiated herself lately—she’d said she had a headache and was tired. Now she was staring down at her bowl of cereal like she needed it to give her the answers to all of life’s questions.
She blinked a few times and looked up at me, but her mind was clearly still somewhere else. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
“I asked if you would mind if I had my cereal with your breast milk once it starts to come in.”
She absentmindedly reached for the container of milk sitting next to her bowl and handed it to me. “Umm. Sure. Here you go.”
At best, she heard fifty percent of what I’d said.
My chair scraped along the tiled kitchen floor as I pushed back from the table. I pulled Gia’s seat back, scooped her up, and sat my ass down with her on my lap. Slipping two fingers under her chin, I made sure I had her attention this time.
“What’s going on? Something’s bothering you. You’ve been acting strange since the party last night. Did getting to see Satan and his spawn freak you out about being with me?”
“What? No!”
I pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Then what’s bothering you? Talk to me.”
“I…” She shook her head and looked away. “I don’t know. I’m just really tired all of a sudden, and…even though I’ve made progress on my book, the deadline is really starting to weigh on my mind.”
I nodded. “I bet my brother reminding you of the villain in your book brought that all to the forefront of your mind. The douche’s face can ruin anyone’s day.”
She nodded. “Yeah. That’s probably it.”
I kissed her forehead. “I’ll tell you what. I have business to take care of today, anyway. Why don’t I motivate you to write all day? What’s a good day of writing for you?”
She shrugged. “Maybe three thousand words.”
I smirked. “Pretty sure that’s more than I wrote in four years of high school and one of college before I dropped out.”
“You went to college?”
“Yep. School of Visual Arts. I wanted to learn animation. I had this crazy idea of animating an adult cartoon series based on my winged babes. Not cartoon porn…but sexy babes who can fly and fight crime.”
“That’s not crazy. I bet it would be amazing if it turned out anything like your art. But why did you drop out after a year?”
“My mother told me that my father had set up a college fund and was paying for college. During my second semester, I was looking through her file cabinet for a copy of my birth certificate to apply for a passport, and I found a bunch of loan documents. My father hadn’t paid for college. She was pulling equity out of her house to pay the tuition each semester. By the time I hit third year, she would’ve been mortgaged for more than her house was worth.” I shrugged. “I told her college wasn’t for me and dropped out. There was no way that I was letting her take on all that debt when she’d worked her ass off to pay down that mortgage for twenty years. My plan had been to work a year or two, save some money, and go back when I could afford to pay the tuition myself.”
“But you never went back?”
“Nope. I found tattooing and then eventually I came into the money that my grandfather had left me, and my life took a different direction after that.”
“Does your mom know the real reason you dropped out?”
“No.” I pointed a finger at her. “And if she finds out now, I’ll know where the leak came from. You’re the only one I’ve ever told that story to.”
Gia let out a big sigh and clasped her hands behind my neck. “You’re a good man, Heathcliff Rushmore. Such a good man.”
My brows lifted. “Heathcliff, huh? You better watch it. I was thinking your reward for pounding out three thousand words would be I’d pick up a chick flick DVD, a big ass container of Chunky Monkey with two spoons, and bring some massage oil so I can rub the tension from your neck after typing all day. But…if you start calling me Heathcliff, I’ll be bringing girl-on-girl porn, eating an ice cream cone for one on my way over, and you’ll be using that massage oil to slick my wick while I sit back with my hands behind my neck and you do all the work.”