Chapter 7
Amy had become a pro at turning down the random blasts of music, so they didn’t disconnect it.
It was amazing that once the volume was controlled, the Christmas music wafted pleasantly around them, making this enormous house feel cozy.
Lights twinkled throughout and across the lake, and the scent of steak filled the kitchen.
Steak. What a treat. This was the sort of evening Amy always longed for and rarely was afforded.
An evening with an actual adult dining companion (Kevin didn’t count), food that was something other than pizza or Hot Pockets, and ambiance.
Ambiance! She never had ambiance. She wanted ambiance, every day.
She wanted to live like this, like a woman with purpose and a reason to put on nice clothes and makeup.
Lord, what had happened to her in the last fifty years? How had she gone from bohemian artist to a woman who ate Hot Pockets while she surfed TikTok and wore the same T-shirt all week?
Amy found two aprons in a drawer. One of them was painted as a Christmas tree, so that at the top, the head of the person wearing it took the place of the star of Bethlehem. The other apron sported the headless torso of Santa. “Flip a coin?” Amy asked.
Harrison reached for Santa. “This feels right.”
As he put on the Santa body, she took the tree and donned it.
“What are you doing?” Harrison asked. “You were very clear that you would not lift a finger.”
“And I meant it,” she said as she laced the ties in front of her. “But this is different than my real life. You don’t expect me to help. Therefore, I am happy to help. If that makes sense.”
“Not a lick. I appreciate your offer, but I don’t need you,” he assured her. “I’ve done this before.”
“Ah, I get it.”
He began to prepare the steaks. “Get what?”
“You’re the type of guy to invite a girl over for a fancy dinner.”
“No,” he said patiently. “I’m the type of guy who likes to eat.”
She didn’t know if she believed that, but nevertheless, Amy liked watching him. Until her phone pinged. Three times, indicating multiple texts. She picked it up and frowned down at the screen.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
Sure, if a person didn’t mind that her entire family ignored her one request. “Totally. It’s just the usual—my kids driving me crazy.”
“Ah.”
She immediately regretted saying that out loud. It was one thing to be driven crazy by one’s children. It was quite another to admit to it publicly. “I’m not as bad a mother as I sound,” she said quickly.
“I don’t think you sound like a bad mother.”
She knew she did, but all mothers were bad in some way.
“I really do love my kids. I mean, I would kill for them. But sometimes, I’d like to kill them.
” She glanced up from her phone. “The youngest has been sending me cat videos today. No explanation, just videos of cats being awesome. The oldest one just texted to ask why I never buy hot chocolate for them, that didn’t I know when it gets cold like this, they really like hot chocolate? ”
“Oh. You are a bad mother,” Harrison said. “Major parenting fail, Ms. Casey.”
“One among many.” She put the phone face down on the counter.
“I told him to suck it up, because that’s the kind of supportive mom I am.
” She laughed. Was she so wrong to not like her kids sometimes?
She loved them, always. Liked them most of the time.
And then there were those moments she really, truly, did not.
“So how did you manage to avoid having kids?” she asked.
He shot her a look.
“Sorry,” she said immediately. She could really be flippant sometimes. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I’m so nosey. I can’t help but be overly curious about people. I think it’s due to a lack of anything interesting in my own life.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how overly curious are you?”
“Well…Mr. Franklin, who lives across the street, is a widower, and he’s been getting a package every day from UPS. Like, exactly the same sized box every day. I’ve counted up to twelve so far.”
Harrison paused in his seasoning of the steaks. “That’s strange.”
“Right? What could be in those identical boxes? My brother told me to mind my own business, and I know I should, but still…it’s kind of interesting, right?”
“It’s weirdly interesting, I’m not going to lie,” he agreed.
She was grateful that he didn’t seem appalled by her, at least. “But, listen, I’m going to do my best to not be nosey. You don’t deserve that.” She made a show of crossing her heart.
“Thank you, but I don’t care if you count my packages. I’ve got nothing to hide. To answer your question, I don’t have kids because I have never been married.” He arched a brow at her and smiled. “I bet you’re really curious now.”
“I am so insanely curious I may have to gnaw my hand off to keep from asking.”
He laughed. “I guess I didn’t really think about kids when I was younger. I didn’t have a ticking biological clock or anything like that, and always figured there would be time for a wife and a family.”
“Let me guess—afraid of commitment,” she said. “A lot of men are, you know.”
“I don’t think that’s true. All my colleagues and fellow golfers seem to be married.”
“Yeah,” she said, thinking of her workplace of forty people, most of them men. Married men. “I honestly don’t know if that’s true, either. Why do I never stop talking?”
He grinned at her. “I like talking to you. The truth is, I travel a lot. I was never in one place long enough to really make that kind of connection.”
“Seriously? Never?”
He put the steaks on the built-in grill. “Okay, maybe not never. A few years back I was in a long-term relationship that I thought would lead to marriage and kids at some point. But…my schedule got in the way of it. Or at least our downfall started with my schedule.”
Amy immediately had so many questions and no right to ask them. “How often do you travel?”
“Eight or nine months a year. For a couple of years, I was gone every month.”
Yikes. She couldn’t imagine being away from home that long each year.
For one, her house would be a complete disaster if she wasn’t there to pick up after all the boys.
And for two, she would miss them terribly—all her previous comments to the contrary notwithstanding.
“It’s hard to even get to the grocery store when you travel that much, right?
” she asked. She stood up from the bar and went into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
“Exactly.”
“The good news is, there’s still time for you, if you want a family. You’re young.”
Harrison laughed and reached around her, pulling out a bunch of asparagus he’d bought. “I’ll be fifty next month. Not exactly the right age for starting a family.”
So he was roughly her age. She liked that. “Spring chicken,” she said cheerfully.
He went to the sink to rinse the asparagus. “And no woman my age is going to want to jump through fertility hoops to have kids at this point.”
“Well, sure, a woman your age would be crazy to even think about it,” Amy said. “So go younger like every other man in America. Marry a twenty-five-year-old and start popping them out.”
“Just pop them out, huh? Is it just me, or is your view of the male sex awfully cynical?”
“I know,” she said, a little mystified by how crabby about men she sounded. “I didn’t realize just how cynical I’d gotten until this very moment. I guess because I was married to one, I am raising two, am hosting another, and I work around them all day long. It can be a little exasperating.”
“Well, sure. That’s a lot of testosterone. But for the record, not all men are interested in twenty-five-year-old women. Personally, I prefer women who have lived a little. You know, shared experiences and all that.”
That might be the most interesting thing he’d said so far.
Amy never heard men talk about “shared experiences.” She heard them talk about boobs, and for some reason, they loved to talk about them at work.
She saw the way they looked at women, too, and when a woman hit fifty or so, the journey to complete invisibility was already underway.
“I’m heartened to hear you’re not like that. But I still maintain most men are.”
“Yeah, they probably are,” he said with a sigh. “I travel with them. They’re pigs.” He grinned at her. “But didn’t you tell me your ex wanted to get back together? He could go younger, you know.”
She laughed as she rummaged around the produce drawer in the fridge. “Well, he tried. He found out younger was too much for someone who wants to be in bed by nine.”
“See? I rest my case.” Harrison flipped the steaks. “Not all men.”
She grabbed some lettuce and a cucumber. “Please don’t use my ex to rest your case.”
“Deal. If you won’t use my bachelorhood to rest yours.”
“Deal.” She smiled. His gaze slipped to her mouth for a sliver of a second, and then back to the steaks. It was enough to ignite a spark in a region of her body that had been dormant a long time. Well, hello. She could feel her face heating like she was twenty again.
She took several things out of the fridge and put them on the bar. “Do you like nuts? I’m making a salad.”
“Wait.” He pointed tongs at her. “You were very clear about no cooking or cleaning.”
“Old habits die hard.” She opened the cabinets until she found a salad bowl. “Also, I say a lot of things I don’t actually mean. I forget half of what I say, don’t mean the other half, and I’m kidding the other half after that.”
“That’s too many halves.”
“See? Don’t listen to me.”
“But what if I like listening to you?” he asked as he turned the steaks.
That little spark was spreading. “Well, that would be a first for me,” she said with a grin that was way too big for the moment. What was the matter with her?
But he looked at her and smiled warmly, and the tingle notched up.
“So,” he said. “A strong cold front is headed for us. They’re saying torrential rain turning to snow.”