Page 83 of Elevator Pitch

Harley shrugs. “Don’t be. She’s superficial. Now, if Dad were dating Aria Grendall, that would be a different situation.” He pauses and wrinkles his nose. “Then again, that would just be wrong.” He shivers. “He could be her father, which would make me her stepbrother.” He pauses again, tilts his head. “Okay, that might not be bad. I could use all her connections.”

As I have no idea who Aria Grendall is, or what she does, I let Harley have this argument with himself, although not liking the idea of Ross dating someone possibly as young as his own child.

“You attend DePaul, right?” I ask to defuse my thoughts.

Harley smiles slowly, his mouth wide and big like his dad’s can be. “I do attend DePaul.” He does that cute head tilt again. “Did Dad tell you about me?”

“Only that you’re a freshman at DePaul and you’re majoring in musical theatre. And he wanted to move back to Chicago to be closer to you.”

Harley lowers his head, but I don’t miss his dismissive scoff. “Yeah, well, two out of three isn’t bad.”

My brows crease, curious what he thinks isn’t correct. “You don’t attend DePaul as a freshman for musical theatre?”

He lifts his head and sighs. “No, those three things are correct.”

Which means he doesn’t believe his father wanted to move to Chicago for his son.

Watching Harley, he waves his hand, brushing off the conversation. “Anyway, I’m here to do laundry for free and raid his refrigerator.”

I snortle. “Well, good luck on item number two. You might starve, buddy.”

The kid laughs and wrinkles his nose again. “Yeah, I should know better when Dad isn’t around. There probably isn’t much in that fridge.”

Slowly, I stand, using the island as best I can as a shield. “If you give me a minute to get dressed, I can see what he has and rustle us up something.” I swing my arm before me like I’m an old-time cowboy on the range. I have no idea why I did that, and I slowly lower my fist to the countertop. “Or I could order you something?”

Harley watches me for a long minute, not taking in my appearance as much as trying to read me. Maybe wondering what my agenda is here, in his dad’s house, making myself at home.

“You’re different than the rest of them.” His voice is soft, quieter as his gaze drops to the countertop where he flips his phone repetitively, like a nervous tick.

“Different how?” I don’t think I need to ask different from who. He means all the other women that have passed through Ross’s life. The repertoire of supermodels and influencers.

“Besides being old,” I tease, trying to mask the gut punch to my belly from that comment. And any physical comparison to someone more Ross’s type.

“You remind me of . . .” As his voice drifts, he stops the twirl of his phone and then lifts his head, not finishing his sentence. “Do you think you could make pancakes?”

I stare back at the boy, on the verge of being a man. Some kids are eighteen on the edge of twenty-eight while others easily slip back to being ten again. Harley is at that precipice.

“I’ll certainly hunt around for the ingredients but if I don’t find them how does The Syrup Tap sound?” A Chicago-area favorite, the waffle and pancake house is a place my girls love. “Or if you don’t like that place, we could go somewhere else.”

“No,” Harley is quick to answer. “The Syrup Tap sounds great, Verona.”

“My friends call me Vee,” I tell him, and you’d have thought I’d shared my deepest secret with the kid by the way he smiles in response. Wide and big again.

“Vee it is. You can still call me Harley.”

“Got it.” I finger gun him, but he’s already turning away from me.

“I’ll get dressed.”

As he disappears, I’m left standing in Ross’s kitchen curious why Harley thinks his father wouldn’t want to be closer to him. The moment also feels a bit surreal as I just had a discussion with Ross’s son while wearing Ross’s T-shirt, while his son was only in his underwear.

And now, I have a breakfast date with Harley Davis.

+ + +

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at the situation, I learn a great deal about Harley and his dad during our pancake meal.

“Aunt Rena essentially raised us after our mom died,” Harley explains around a mouthful of sliver-dollar chocolate chip pancakes. He asked for the full order, which amounts to a dozen of the chocolate pancakes smothered in whipped cream and covered in mini-chocolate chips.