Craft (The Gibson Boys 2)

“Let’s just say Machlan got it honest,” he laughs. “I guess Dad was a ruffian back in the day too. I hear stories now sometimes about him in the eighties in the pool hall downtown.”

“Days of the pool halls,” I sigh. “I had this little fantasy for a while growing up that I would walk into a pool hall and some bad boy would whisk me away.”

“Sounds like you watched too many Patrick Swayze movies.”

“There’s no such thing,” I giggle. “My first crush. I wanted to have all his babies.”

Lance’s smile falters. He scoots around again, a wrinkle dotting his forehead. “What about now?”

“What about now what?”

“Do you still want to have babies?”

I’m not sure if it’s because he doesn’t look at me when he says it or if it’s the tone he uses to pose his question, but it feels like it’s a set-up of some sort. I give him a second to turn to me, but he doesn’t. He keeps his gaze across the hills towards the setting sun.

“Yes. I want to have babies,” I say, my voice soft. “I’ve always wanted to be a mother. What you had growing up, I didn’t and I always wanted it. I wanted to create my own little family who had dinners together and took vacations together and built forts together with blankets in the living room on rainy days.”

He nods his head, working his jaw back and forth. “You’ll be a great mother.”

“Thanks,” I whisper. “I hope so.”

There’s really no reaction from him.

“What about you?” I ask. “Do you want to be a father?”

He starts to laugh, but the little lines around his eyes that come out when he’s amused aren’t there. There’s a crease instead, one that is foreign to me.

Sitting up, he licks his lips before turning to me. His eyes shine with something that causes my heart to ache.

“I always wanted three boys and a girl, just like my dad. I wanted the girl to spoil like he did Blaire and the boys to tell about my glory days.” He almost smiles, but not quite. “I think I grew up in such a comfortable, happy home that I just wanted to replicate it.”

“Can I ask you something?”

He shrugs.

“Why are you so anti-relationship now? It seems counter-productive if having a family is what you want.”

“Maybe …” He forces a swallow. “Maybe I’m not sure how much like my dad I really am after all.” He swipes up his glasses and puts them back on his face. “What about your dad? What was he like?”

It’s a definite, intentional change in topic. There’s so much more to his story, one I want to know. I can’t press it; it’s not my place. And as that little piece of reality splashes me in the face, I feel like I’ve been hit with a bucket of cold water.

“My dad was meh,” I say, trying to move my thoughts to the new conversation. “He calls sometimes, but I think he really just said ‘screw it’ and wrote us off.”

“I can see him writing off your mom, maybe even your sister. But not you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m inclined to think I should’ve been more unforgettable too,” I laugh.

“Have you heard from Chrissy?”

“Nope. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I’m not hedging my bets either way.”

“Do you want her to?” he asks, wrapping his hand around my ankle.

I shrug. “I don’t know. Can people like that change, Lance? Can she go from being a total, outrageous asshole and then become this sisterly person?”

Could you go from being a man whore to a monogamous man?

Biting down on my tongue is the only way to keep that thought from slipping out of my mouth.

He squeezes my leg and thinks. “I used to say no. Tigers, stripes, all that. But lately I’ve been considering maybe people can change. I don’t know.”

“Okay, let’s say they can. But do they always revert back to what they were?”

“Maybe people are less like tigers and more like … onions.”

“People do stink,” I giggle.

“True,” he says, shaking my leg. “But maybe they’re also layered.”

“So what you’re saying is that as you go through life, you shed layers?”

“Maybe,” he shrugs. “Or, as you go through life, it sheds them for you. I think of Cross, right? He dated this girl named Kallie for years. Cross was a pure hell raiser and Kallie had enough and left. Maybe if she would’ve stayed, he would’ve still been high on her sofa,” he laughs. “It’s possible her leaving made him shed a layer. Now he’s an all right guy.”

“Maybe,” I sigh. “Maybe having Betsy made Chrissy shed a layer.”

“And maybe it didn’t,” he adds. “Whether we want to think people can change or not, we have to remember that history says things are not only cyclical but also fairly predictable. Remember that.”