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“Tomorrow night… I was hoping to take you and Brooklyn to dinner at Iris’s house.”
“Oh,” I whisper, surprised by his question.
“If this is moving too fast for you, just say the word, Quinn, but I’d really like to introduce her to the two of you.”
Our eyes meet across the table and the hopeful expression on his face pulls at my heart. Maybe it is moving too fast but I can’t deny how I feel about him, even after such a short time, and I can tell that this is important to him. I nod.
“I’d really like that.”
He flashes me a satisfied smile. “I’ll let Iris know.”
As I peel back the wrapper around my sandwich, I suck in a breath, suddenly feeling nervous about meeting Iris tomorrow night. It’s clear from how Lucas speaks about her that she means a lot to him and I want to impress her.
“You okay?” he asks and I nod.
“Yeah, just a little nervous, I guess. I want her to like me.”
He reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “Of course, she’s going to like you. How could she not?”
“I… I just don’t want her to think badly of me. I know how people see me - a single woman raising my child on my own.”
“First off, Iris isn’t like that and second, anyone who is doesn’t deserve to know you. I may not know what happened with Brooklyn’s father but I know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t be raising her by yourself if you had any other choice.”
“Thank you,” I whisper as my heart pounds in my chest. I glance down at the table for a second as a blush creeps up my cheeks before meeting his eyes again. “Tell me about her.”
“Iris?”
I nod and he laughs as he pulls his hand back and pops a French fry into his mouth. “Let’s see… she’s worked as a manager at this little grocery store as long as I’ve known her and she’s super laid back, which is exactly what I needed as a kid. She likes to drink tea and watch movies - that’s something we used to do together when I couldn’t sleep…”
“I can’t see you drinking tea,” I interrupt and he laughs.
“To be honest, it wasn’t for me so she’d make me hot cocoa and we’d watch her chick flicks.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “I can’t see that either.”
“I know. No one can but I have a plethora of movie references up here,” he says, tapping the side of his forehead.
“Plethora, huh? I’m impressed.”
He nods with a wink as he grabs another French fry. “You should be.”
“How did you meet Iris? Was she fostering other kids?”
“Uh,” he mutters before clearing his throat. “No. Her house backs up to the woods and there’s this old railway that used to run through there but they don’t use it anymore. Clay and I found an old boxcar sitting on the abandoned track and we were living there when she found us.”
“Oh my god, Lucas,” I whisper, imagining my own baby out in the woods, living in a boxcar and tears sting my eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
As he glances down at the table, he shakes his head. “It’s okay. I mean, it all worked out, right?”
“Still, no kid should have to go through something like that. How did you end up there?”
“I think that’s enough sadness for one day, don’t you?” he replies, lifting his head and the pain in his eyes breaks my heart. There’s so much depth to this man as well as pain and tragedy that I haven’t discovered yet and what I already know makes me want to pull him into my arms and fix it for him. “There’s something that I wanted to ask you, though.”
“What?”
“Your ex fiancé… what happened with him?”
I sigh and pick at my sandwich. “Nothing really, which I guess was the problem. I met Danny just before the start of my sophomore year of college and he was the kind of guy that everyone expected me to end up with. Like if you saw us, you would just assume we were together because we looked like we fit but in every other area of our relationship, it was just… boring, expected.”
