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“I would say she found a way to survive in a man’s world, but it wouldn’t necessarily be true.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because even men are scared shitless by her. Sometimes I wonder if my father didn’t simply up and die of a heart attack in some unconscious attempt to get away from her.”
I turned at that, raising a brow. “Oh? Isn’t that romantic?”
He was leaning on the metal railing but, to my surprise, was staring at the skyline rather than down at me. “Eh, I never got to know my father. He died far too early for anything like that. From what I’ve pieced together, from my mother of course, but also my siblings, his friends, people who knew him, he…well, he wasn’t the sort of person I would have wanted to emulate growing up.”
“And why is that?” I asked before I could wonder if I should even care.
“Because there are some people in this world so convinced of their strength and capabilities that they’re ultimately the weakest people,” he said with a shrug. “My father inherited what was given to him, what he was raised for. In the end, he found himself married for life to a woman he couldn’t figure out how to handle.”
“Your mom isn’t exactly the type to be handled,” I said with a snort.
He looked down at me finally, smirking. “Everyone can be handled. He was just unwilling to admit someone like her could run over him like she did.”
“Someone like her?”
“In all that research you did, you never looked into my mother’s past?”
“I…no,” I admitted.
“You should. It might even go some way to explaining certain things.”
“What things?”
He reached into his light jacket and withdrew a small flask from an inside pocket, taking a swig from it. “I’ve been called a hedonist on occasion.”
The sudden switch in conversation took me off-guard, but thankfully his statement wasn’t all that bizarre, and I snorted. “Who would have thought?”
He chuckled, and even I had to admit that it sounded good-natured. “Yet, I haven’t indulged in all the little pleasures history’s most famous hedonists have.”
“I’m not sure if you’re looking for me to ask more questions to prompt you into going into details or an award,” I told him dryly. Honestly, at this point, I was sure I’d never be able to hold my tongue whenever he spoke. At least so far, it seemed like he wasn’t taking offense, so I suppose I could treat him with the same firm but careful style I used with his mother.
Albeit a little more bitchy.
“Are you always this feisty?” he asked me, and I was once more struck by how unbothered he sounded.
I huffed, realizing my annoyance was showing through, and I half expected that was just what he was looking for. He had, after all, admitted he delighted in shocking people. Why wouldn’t that extend to irritating them as well? Shane seemed intent on getting on his mother’s nerves, and perhaps I was just another target.
“You’re not the first person to ask me that,” I told him.
“I’m currently trying to decide if you were the sort of kid who spent most of his life being quiet and well behaved before finally having enough and deciding that having an attitude was beneficial. Or if you were the sort who was a handful your whole life, but you’ve only recently learned how to keep calm.”
“Well, since you seem to be having so much fun trying to figure it out, I wouldn’t want to spoil your fun by giving any spoilers,” I told him, flashing a clearly fake smile at him.
He wagged a finger at me. “Now see, that doesn’t help clear it up at all.”
“So which is it? Do you want to figure it out on your own or do you want me to give you some easy hints?” I asked, resisting the urge to cross my arms over my chest. I was sorely beginning to wish I’d taken the cleaner up on his offer for a cigarette.
“Is this,” he began, motioning to me from head to toe, “why they decided to assign you to my mother?”
“There is more than one caregiver assigned to her,” I said, which wasn’t strictly true. The other caregivers were all just pulled from other assignments, for the most part, to cover the first half of the day, while I took the latter half. However, I didn’t know who they had in my place for my days off, but I assumed they weren’t long-term placements.
“Evasion,” he said, arching a brow.
“And your question was vague,” I told him, shooting him the same expression.
