Daisy didn’t stand a chance. She was hypnotized by the gorgeous professional pretender that was Caleb.
“And I had to work hard to save money so she could have a taste of your wonderful clam chowder,” he finis
hed, batting his eyelashes at the older woman.
Daisy beamed. “And what do you do for a living, young man?”
“I’m a stripper, ma’am.”
I choked. Daisy looked at Caleb as if she thought he was out of his mind.
I suppressed my laugh and added, “We have six kids—”
“God help you!” she interrupted.
“—already. All of them twins and all boys, and now I’m pregnant with triplets. He’s having a vasectomy done next week, so I wanted to enjoy all of his…manhood one last time before he gets cut,” I exaggerated.
Caleb snorted.
Daisy’s eyes narrowed, wondering if we were serious. “All right, you lovebirds.” She grinned. “I’ll get you your clam chowder before your husband gets his balls cut off,” she joked, winking. She was clearly on to us.
Caleb and I burst out laughing when we were sure she was gone.
“So, Red…you want to enjoy my manhood, yeah?” Caleb wiggled his eyebrows.
I slapped his arm, laughing.
“And you want to have nine kids, is that right?” he added.
“I haven’t thought about it.”
He frowned.
I bit my lip. I was lying. I had dreamed of having kids once, but I was a different person then. How was I supposed to feed them? My mom and I barely had anything to eat. What if we went bankrupt and got kicked out of our house and then they got sick? The world was a dangerous, unforgiving place.
Caleb tilted his head and studied me for a moment.
“You have me. We’ll raise them together,” he declared. “I want to have our own basketball team.”
I was saved from replying when Daisy placed our orders on the table, winked again, and left.
“I hope we don’t get E. coli here,” I commented. I sampled the soup and was pleasantly surprised by how delicious it was.
“I’ve been here before, when I was”—his voice trailed off while he thought—“eight? I’ve been back a few times. I don’t think anything has changed. It may not look like much, but I promise you the food here is very good.”
“You’ve been here before?” I asked, surprised.
He nodded, his face falling. “With my dad and Ben.”
A lonely light glimmered in his eyes. “Dad grew up in a small town. He was a mechanic in a run-of-the-mill garage. That’s how he met my mom,” Caleb explained, reaching for my hand and rubbing his thumb on my palm.
A current sparked where his skin met mine, zinging all the way up my arm.
“My mom was a teenager at the time. She went on a trip with her friends to a cabin outside town, and on the drive back home, she met my dad. She got pregnant with my brother, Ben. They got married against the wishes of all their parents…” He shrugged. “Anyway, he was a good dad at first. During weekends, he would drive us—just me and him and Ben—to different small towns. Just visiting, he said. Exposing his sons to the side of the world that wasn’t wealthy and pretentious.”
He stared at our hands, intertwining our fingers and squeezing lightly.
“What happened?” I asked quietly when he didn’t continue.