Chapter Seventeen #3
I laughed, feeling a rapport building between us that was more than attraction.
I genuinely liked this man. It occurred to me that as much as I loved Dude, and I truly did, I had missed this.
Having someone to eat with, talk to, and be ridiculous with was…
really nice. I led the way to the living room and joined Dude on the couch while Simon took the adjacent recliner.
“So, real talk,” I said. “Given that I was trained as a journalist, you won’t be surprised to learn that I have boundary issues—as in, I don’t have any.”
“I’ve noticed.” That small shy smile of his appeared and I glanced away before I got distracted.
“Do you love your current career?” I continued.
“I work for the insurance company that Gramps founded with his friend Pete Billings when he got back from Vietnam,” he said. “Loving what I do was never a consideration.”
“It could be,” I said. “I mean, if you don’t enjoy it, why not change it?”
“It’s complicated,” he said.
“In what way?”
“For a variety of reasons, but the main one is that when my mother died, my father ditched us to start over in Florida, leaving us penniless.”
I nodded. I knew what that felt like. Simon tipped his head to the side and studied me. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I just know how that feels.”
He waited, clearly wanting me to continue but the shame of being kicked to the curb by my husband for not being able to conceive wasn’t something I wanted to talk about. Not now. Not ever. “Do you ever hear from your father?”
“Only when he wants something,” Simon said after a beat.
“Gramps became our guardian until Lorelei turned eighteen. We were surviving, we all worked hard for scholarships and Gramps was an excellent provider. We never wanted for anything. It looked like everything was going to be all right. But when Charlie’s life derailed, Gramps took on the care of Charlie until I insisted on taking over when Gramps’s health started declining,” Simon said.
“Gramps was ready to retire, so I took a job at his insurance company and have slowly worked my way up. An art career can’t provide the steady income and benefits I need to make to care for my brother. ”
“Is that why you want to sell the cottage?” I asked.
He met my eyes and slowly nodded. “The profit from the sale would guarantee that Charlie was taken care of no matter what might happen to me or, heaven forbid, Lor.”
Well, hell. I let out a slow breath. How could I oppose a man wanting to take care of his brother?
I understood, I did, but the part of me that didn’t want to give up the place my grandfather had left to me stubbornly hoped there was another solution besides selling.
I decided to put the topic aside for now.
“What about Lorelei?” I asked. “Does she help?”
“She wants to,” Simon said. “But she’s still paying off some student loans from nursing school.
I told her that we can talk about it when she gets ahead of things.
After Gramps died, she threatened me with physical violence if I didn’t start letting her share some of the responsibility.
” He shook his head. “For a nurse, she is savage.”
“You’re a good brother,” I said. He shrugged. “Why do you suppose your father and grandfather are so different? Your dad disappeared but your grandfather stepped up?”
He considered the question and rubbed his jaw with the back of his hand.
“Who knows? My father could be a raging narcissist or just an asshole, who can tell? I do know that Gramps was brokenhearted by how his son turned out. In true Gramps fashion, he blamed himself. He said living through the war made him spoil his only child because he was so grateful to be alive to be a father. I don’t believe that, though. ”
“No?”
“No, I think my dad is just a miserable man who is only happy when he makes everyone around him equally miserable. I’d feel sorry for him but I don’t care about him enough for even that.”
“I’m sorry your father abandoned you.” I wanted to hug him but I didn’t.
“Meh.” He sipped his beer. “What about you? You likely don’t want to live in your van forever, so what’s your five-year plan or are you a seat-of-the-pants type of gal?”
I laughed. “Contrary to appearances, I am absolutely not a pantser. I am a list maker.”
“Really?” He lowered an eyebrow in disbelief. “You’re destroying my illusion of you being the sort of person who wakes up whenever you feel like it and decides what to do for the day in the moment.”
“I spent too many years as a beat reporter for that,” I said. “Deadlines have honed my personality like river water tumbles stones. I have a day minder in paper as well as on my phone because if I don’t write it down it doesn’t happen.”
A comfortable silence fell between us. Normally, I would have felt the need to chatter to fill the silence but with Simon, it was okay to just sit and rub Dude’s ears. As baby boy sank deeper into sleep, I shifted and felt the bottom of the couch shift. I did it again.
“O’Malley, I think this is a fold-out couch.”
He glanced at me. “Or it’s a falling-apart couch.”
I roused Dude. “Let’s see. A sleeper has to be more comfortable for you than trying to snooze on it with your feet hanging off the side.”
Dude reluctantly vacated the couch and sprawled in front of the cold fireplace. Simon dragged the coffee table to the side and we pulled the cushions off. Sure enough, there was a folded-up mattress on a spring frame.
“I knew it!” I reached in and grabbed what appeared to be a handle.
“Let me help,” Simon said.
“I got it.” I yanked but the frame didn’t move.
Frowning, I shifted my grip and tugged with all my might.
A piercing feeling of pain spiked into my palm and I yelped and jerked my hand away.
In the meaty part of my palm, there was a puncture that promptly started oozing blood.
I glanced at my hand, which throbbed, and said, “That can’t be good. ”