The Boyfriend Experience (The Boyfriend Experience 1)

She hadn’t expected Eric to take any of it seriously, but there had been a definite change in him as he’d stared into her eyes and they’d connected on a deeper level than just superficial attraction. For a few intriguing minutes, it was as though he’d allowed himself to drop those emotional defenses he’d built around himself when his sister had died, and then panicked when it all became too much to deal with.

Because he clearly had years of practice, he’d refortified those protective walls and opted to joke about it now. But the whole encounter had left Evie’s heart feeling more for this man than she ever could have imagined a week ago when she’d clicked on his profile app. She wasn’t an insta-love kind of girl, but there was no denying that she was falling hard and fast for Eric . . . which had heartbreak written all over it.

She went back to instructing him how to skim a stone the way her grandfather had taught her and Garrett when they were younger. She’d been ten years old and it hadn’t taken her long to learn the right grip, angle, and release to throw the rock, and as she did so now, it bounced nine times across the surface of the lake before finally sinking.

“That’s impressive and I suck at this,” he said as his own rock made a sad plopping sound into the water as he tried to follow her advice.

She found it amusing that the hot, athletic guy who was the total package didn’t have the coordination to skim a stone. “The flat part of the rock needs to hit the water parallel to the surface. It just takes practice.”

He bent down to retrieve another rock and positioned his fingers the way she’d told him to. “I remember being on vacation with my parents and Trisha before she got sick, and my dad tried teaching us to skim stones. He was patient, but I just couldn’t get the hang of it back then, either.” He laughed.

While Eric had told Evie about his sister’s illness and death, he’d pretty much glossed over his parents, except for the fact that they’d shut down emotionally after Trisha’s passing and eventually divorced. “Where are your parents now?” she asked.

Surprisingly, he didn’t hesitate to share. “Well, after they divorced, my dad ended up meeting someone else. He’s remarried and is now living in Arizona. I talk to him occasionally and visit when I can. And the best way I can describe my mom is that she’s spent the past thirteen years isolating herself and mourning my sister’s death. She still lives in the same house my sister and I grew up in. She works in a nursery taking care of the plants and flowers, and I make it a point of having dinner with her every Sunday when I can.”

Evie felt bad that his mom was spending this Sunday alone since Eric was here with her. She remembered him mentioning his mother falling into a deep depression and him feeling shut out. “Is she still battling with depression?”

“Honestly, it’s not as bad as it was. She’s on meds and functioning, and she has good days and bad days, but I know she’s lonely.” He lowered his head, his gaze on the way he was absently flipping the stone between his fingers. “It’s really sad, but my mom lost a lot of her close friends because she wouldn’t take their calls or see them when they stopped by. She essentially pushed them out of her life when Trisha died.”

He glanced at Evie, his eyes a little optimistic. “However, I think she’s going to try to reconnect with a friend she saw recently at work who asked her to lunch. God, I really do hope she’s going to try and make the effort, because when she told me about it, I saw a spark of my old mom again, and she needs more in her life than her garden and my sister’s memory.”

“After thirteen years, that has to be really hard,” she said, as a warm afternoon breeze filtered through her hair. “Opening yourself up again to friendships that have fallen by the wayside can’t be easy.”

“I completely agree. She’s nervous, rightly so, because so much has changed.” He shook his head wistfully. “She used to be this vibrant, outgoing woman who kept up her appearance, and now she’s someone who no longer cares about her looks. My mom is in her fifties, but she let her hair go, and with all the gray, she looks like she’s closer to sixty. I get the feeling that bothers her and is part of the reason she’s hesitant to put herself back out there again.”

An idea came to mind, one that excited Evie. “Eric, why don’t you bring your mother into the salon?” she suggested. “I’ll give her a haircut and color the gray and help give her some confidence back. Kind of what I do for the women on Beautiful You day.”