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“If you want to tell me.”
She laughed. “You know as well as I do that you’re going to try to get more information out of me somehow.”
He grinned. “Not in a mean way. Let’s try this first. I like you. I like the way you look. All professional and young and fresh at the same time. I like your no-nonsense work ethic and ambition in your job. Many would love working alone and if they didn’t have much to do, they’d fill it on their phone or the internet.”
“I’m not paid to do those things.”
“See,” he said. “Integrity too. Your son thinks the world of you. You’ve got a great balance of being the mom and a friend and he knows when he can soften you up and when to not push.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I think he does. At least as well as most his age. But he still pushes my buttons a lot.”
“Didn’t we all do that to our parents as kids?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I probably did. I think Jax did it more.”
“Jax?” he asked.
“My older brother. You’d like him. He’s going to be thirty-one and is an executive director of a large not-for-profit. The mission of his organization is to help the poor and vulnerable. He’s always been a champion of them. Something tells me you are too.”
“I am,” he said. “Or I try to be. It can get you in trouble at times when you take on battles that you might not be able to win or shouldn’t get involved in.”
“That was Jax as a kid. So he did give my parents fits more than me. But then, there is me getting pregnant my senior year in college and being a disappointment that way.”
“I highly doubt your parents were disappointed in you at all.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I felt it. I dated Jeff for about six months and found out I was pregnant. He wanted to get married right away. I didn’t.”
“Because being pregnant isn’t the reason someone should get married?”
“Yes,” she said. “I liked Jeff. We got along great. I was pretty sure I was in love with him but not positive. We didn’t know enough about each other for me to marry him. I explained that I just wanted to keep things the way they were. We could live together and raise Eli like any other couple, but that piece of paper shouldn’t make a difference.”
“He didn’t feel that way, I’m assuming?”
“He didn’t,” she said. “Neither did his parents and they would always put pressure on me when I saw them. I pushed it off though. I can stand my ground when I need to. We moved in together and raised Eli for about a year. But Jeff just changed. He wasn’t the person that I thought I knew and I was glad that we weren’t married.”
“Can I ask how he changed?”
“Controlling. Everything had to be his way. I had no problem giving Eli Jeff’s last name. Nothing like that. But nothing I did was right and Eli was my child too. He had less patience with me. Everything had to be his way and only his way. If it wasn’t, it wasn’t right.”
“No one wants to feel as if they have no voice,” he said. “I know I wouldn’t.”
“No,” she said. “And I’m not sure why I’m telling you this when I tell very few.”
“Because you trust me even when you don’t want to,” he said. His smile was gone and he knew he was holding his breath. He hoped she wasn’t turned off by those words.
“I guess you’re right. Everyone says nice things about you, but that means nothing.”
He laughed. “You’re right. I could be putting on a front for people.”
“You could be, but I doubt it. I’d like to think I’m a good judge of people.”
“Because you held your ground with your ex and it was the right decision even though it was the hardest decision of your life to leave him and go out on your own.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“I think that makes you brave.”
“Thank you,” she said. “My parents have supported me from the start. I think if they didn’t it would have been harder to leave.”
