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“Left? Just like that?”
One shoulder lifted in a shrug. “If my parents fought, they did it away from me. And Dad never talked about it.”
I tried to imagine anyone being able to leave a child like that and failed. “You must’ve been devastated.”
“Not as much as you might think. She was a free spirit. I think she stayed as long as she could in our normal, domestic little life. And when she had to go, she went. I missed her, of course. Every few years I’ll hear from her, but I long ago stopped expecting anything from her. Dad, though. Him I adored, and he went out of his way to make sure I didn’t really feel the major loss of not having her around. We had fun together. Two peas in a pod. Now, when I lost him,thatwas absolutely devastating.”
Grief welled in those big green eyes, and I instinctively tightened my hold on her, stroking my fingers along the swatch of bare skin on her back just below the edge of her sweatshirt.
“We had so little time to prepare. He went in for a routine checkup and came out with cancer. He only lasted six months.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah. But I did get to say goodbye, at least.”
I hummed a noncommittal noise. She was opening the door for me to say something about losing my folks, but I wasn’t ready to talk about that. When I didn’t say anything else, she kept talking.
“He was so worried that no one was going to be around to take of me, so I set out to prove I could take care of myself. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since.”
“That had to be really hard.” I’d been largely on my own, but I’d always had my grandmother.
“Yeah. I took the money from his life insurance policy, which was honestly about the only thing he could leave me, and used it to open Bloomsday. That first couple of years was lean. But then it took off, and I finally found my groove. It’s been good. I mean, I’m not a rich woman, but I have everything I need.” Her gaze dropped to my chin. “I have to admit that I’ve been lonely.” Those pretty eyes lifted back to mine, and I noted that there was a thin rim of gold around the edges. “That’s part of why it’s been nice being here with you.”
The heart I liked to pretend not to have turned over in my chest, exposing its tender underbelly. I swallowed at the sudden thickness in my throat. “Same.”
When she only waited, quiet, patient, I forced myself to saysomethingas a quid pro quo for the things she’d shared with me. “My parents—I wasn’t close to them the way you were close to your dad. I mean, we were fine. We weren’t especially distant or dysfunctional. They were just kind of self-involved in their own stuff. I hadn’t been planned, and while they always saw to my basic needs, they were really their own self-contained unit, and I was… an afterthought.”
Felicity frowned, wiggling closer in a way that had more blood draining out of my skull. “That’s terrible. No child should be made to feel unimportant.”
What were we talking about? I was having a hard time thinking… Oh, right. My parents.
The semi-permanent erection wilted a bit.
“When they died, I came here to live with Nana. She was the one who really raised me. Taught me how to behave. Showed me love and discipline and boundaries. She showed me what it meant to matter.”
“Dorothy is wonderful.”
“I fucking adore her.”
Felicity resumed tracing idle patterns on my chest. “You know, I remember the first time I saw you.”
“Yeah?” I expected her to say something about that first day in Spanish class.
“Yeah. It was in Pie Hard, right after you got here, I guess. You were with Dorothy.”
“She and Lola have always been thick as thieves.”
“True. You were wearing jeans and black Converse and this slouchy gray t-shirt with some band I’d never heard of.”
I arched a brow. “You remember what I was wearing?”
Her lips curved. “You made an impression.”
“So did you. Not that day but that whole rest of the year, I was aware of you sitting two seats ahead of me to the right. Even before the weather warmed up, you started wearing those little tank tops and cardigans that drove me insane.”
She went brows up at that. “Tank tops and cardigans do it for you?”
I slid my hand lower, to the top of her tempting backside. “Honey, basically you breathing does it for me. Always did.”
