I shook my head instantly. “No.”
“Your first experience with it was pretty bad… It’d be a lot better next time around.”
“Maybe.” I just wasn’t interested in having such an intense relationship like that ever again. Even at our best time, we were never happy. The sex was good. That was the only reason I stayed as long as I did. “What’s your last name?”
“Aldridge,” she said with a smile.
“Do you have family in the city?”
Her smile disappeared quickly. “No.”
“Where are you originally from?”
“Seattle. But my parents passed away a long time ago.”
I’d lost one parent, and it was terrible. I couldn’t imagine losing both.
“On my eighteenth birthday, they went out to pick up my birthday present…and got hit by a semi that wasn’t paying attention. Their car flew off the bridge, fell a hundred feet into the river…and that was it.”
“Jesus…” I whispered, shocked by that terrible story.
“I took the settlement money and moved out here. Just wanted to start over.”
My chest tightened the same way it did when I thought about Derek, like I was experiencing the same pain as if it happened to me.
“I have some friends here, so that’s nice. My job is pretty much my life. That’s why I care about my clients so much. I’m really invested.”
And she had no one as invested in her.
Well…I could be invested in her. “I’m sorry about your parents.” I hated it when people said that to me when I talked about my father. They were meaningless words. I really didn’t understand the phrase at all. But that was the sentence that left my lips…because I was sorry. I was sorry that this woman was all alone in the world. At least I had my mother, my brother, and my son.
She had no one.
“Italian food is my favorite, I’m a fan of the Yankees, and I like to do yoga…when I have time. That’s my life…in a nutshell.”
I felt differently about her now, felt a stronger connection to her than I did with anyone else…other than family. I didn’t have any friends. I had some colleagues I kept in touch with, but once their research took them elsewhere, we rarely spoke. She was the only friend I had. “I feel like I know you better now.”
She smiled. “You know me better than most.”
“Do your other clients know these things?”
She shook her head. “No…you’re the first person to ask.”
I continued to stare at her, noticing the subtle pink lipstick on her lips, the light color that highlighted the curves of her mouth, the bow shape of her bottom lip. I noticed her fair skin, the slight rosiness to her cheeks, the crystal-blue waters of her eyes…the way she had no problem meeting my look without being uncomfortable with the stare. “I don’t have any friends…except you.” I’d never cared about spending my birthday alone, never cared about eating dinner by myself at the dining table, never cared about the silence that followed me everywhere I went.
She smiled. “I don’t have a lot of friends either. And now I have one more.”
Sixteen
Cleo
I sat across from Tucker in the booth, both of us digging into our ice cream cones. “How was work?”
He shrugged. “Still learning the ropes, but it’s going well.”
“Do you like the people you work with?”
“They’re alright. New Yorkers are different, though.”
“Don’t take it personally.”
“It’s gonna be hard to make friends in this town.”
“I would join a basketball league or something. A lot of young guys do that.”
He turned his cone and licked the ice cream. “Good tip.” He took a bite of his cone and examined mine. “So, what you got there?”
“Chocolate chip cookie dough and double fudge.”
“Excellent choice.”
“I never eat ice cream, so this is a nice change.”
“Yeah, I can tell you don’t eat shit often.”
I flinched at his comment about my figure before I continued to eat. “So…what’s Valerie like?”
“Valerie who?” he asked.
“Deacon’s ex.”
“Oh…” He took another bite then wiped his lips with a napkin. “I mean, I’ve never really liked her. When Deacon told me he was going to marry her, I tried to talk him out of it, but he’s stubborn as a mule.”
“Why was he so adamant to marry her?”
“You know, keep the family together. Our dad was the best…” He shook his head as he thought of a memory. “He was able to raise us both separately and together, one gifted child with one average one. He took Deacon to all the science lectures and planetariums, but he took me to football practice and swim parties. I know Deacon has always looked up to him, so when he became a father, that was what he wanted to be…a family to his son.”
He’d made a huge sacrifice…and it was really sweet.
“I don’t know why Valerie let him go through with it, though. I’ve seen Deacon tell her to her face that he doesn’t love her and never will, but she didn’t care. Maybe she thought she could change his mind.”