Chapter 16
It turned out Elsa, Nate’s dad’s lady friend, was okay.
She was a bigger football fan than anyone, if fandom could be judged by loudness and yelling at the refs.
Nate grinned in the kitchen, where he was rinsing off some of the dirty dishes, as, in the living room, she explained to the ref exactly what pass interference was and told him to keep his goddamn eyes open for it.
Dinner had been okay too. Tasty turkey, decent sides, good desserts. It was all okay. And yet the day was lacking.
“Rotten House, you bringing in the rest of that cheesecake?” Dylan hollered from the recliner he hadn’t moved his ass from since kickoff.
Nate overlooked the demand. If Dylan hadn’t shown up today, Nate would’ve been the third wheel, big-time. And while Elsa was nice enough and Nate and his dad were close, sitting through the holiday with the two lovebirds would’ve been hell.
How the mighty of the San Amaro Island Fire Department had fallen.
Five years ago, the Rottinghauses had had their biggest crowd on Turkey Day with seventeen.
Seemed like, since then, everyone and his dog had hooked up, gotten married, some of them with kids, even, and now he could add his dad to the list of the “attached.”
He picked up the plate with the store-bought cheesecake and grabbed the pumpkin cookies Elsa had baked as well and took them out to the living room. Setting them on the coffee table, he verified that the score of the game hadn’t changed and then headed back toward the kitchen.
“You not gonna watch the end of the game?” his dad asked, his arm around his ever-swearing lady and his feet perched on the ottoman.
“I think the Cowboys have it in hand.” They were up by twenty-four with less than ten minutes remaining. “Gonna start cleaning. You people made a mess.”
Dylan tossed a wadded-up napkin at him and slid another piece of cheesecake onto his plate. “I’d help you but I’m still eating.”
Nate waved him off. He wasn’t in the mood for company anyway.
Thanksgiving was usually one of his favorite holidays, but this year, something was off. Not something, someone. Him. He knew the reason, and he hated it. He was sitting around pining the fuck away for a woman who wanted nothing to do with him.
It pissed him off because, first off, he wasn’t that kind of guy. He’d never cared enough about a woman before to get bent out of shape. Second off, he was still upset that Sophie was too scared — of who knew what — to give them a chance. So close and yet … so over.
Shit. What a waste of a Thanksgiving. Since when did he need more than a fried bird and a football game to have a good holiday?
As he soaped up the overflowing dishwasher, he heard a knock at the front door. Probably some of the guys from the station stopping by on their way home from a family celebration.
“Hey, Sophie,” he heard Dylan say from the other room, and Nate poured about twice as much soap in the receptacle as necessary.
What the fuck?
Heart hammering, Nate closed the dishwasher and pushed the appropriate buttons, his ear tuned in to the other room. It was entirely possible Dylan was messing with him. He wasn’t going to go in unless he heard Sophie herself.
And there was her voice, saying hello to his dad, greeting Elsa as she was introduced.
Nate froze. What was she doing here? He blew out a breath and went to the doorway to the living room.
Without a word, he feasted his eyes on her.
She looked more beautiful than ever — or rather, more dolled up than ever, because she was always beautiful, whether covered with black soot or just rolling out of bed — with her hair cascading in wide curls down her back and over her shoulders, shimmery copper eye shadow that deepened the brown of her eyes, a soft-looking pale pink skirt that hit her midway up her gorgeous, toned thighs, and a sexy, gauzy cream-colored shirt.
She wore knee-high brown leather boots and a jacket that matched.
Nate had to remind himself how they’d left things. How she’d kicked him out of her condo. “What are you doing here?”
“I…” She took a few steps toward him, looking unsure. “I baked brownies. By myself, this time, so don’t get too excited because apparently there’s a learning curve. But they should be edible. Sort of.” She held out the covered pan, and Dylan swooped in. “Eat at your own risk,” she said.
“Stomach of steel,” Dylan told her and helped himself.
“No idea where you’re putting all that food,” Nate said to his friend, and to Sophie, “I’ll put them in the kitchen.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing and went to the kitchen. Sophie excused herself from the others and followed him in.
Nate set the pan of brownies down and frowned.
The ones she’d brought to the station had had a trail of caramel artfully twisting over the top.
These … well, artful wasn’t the word he’d use.
They were dark around the edges. Definitely well done.
But the aroma of fudge — and a little bit of burnt sugar — wafted up to his nostrils.
“As I told you,” she said, “my first time. They’re not perfect.”
“I was just wondering how I could fit any more food in. So…” He tossed the dish towel draped over his shoulder to the plate-covered counter, leaned against the oven, and crossed his arms. “I thought you didn’t do Thanksgiving.”
“I… Yeah… I haven’t in the past.” She raised her gaze to his, and he felt it deep in his gut. “I … think I’ve been missing out.”
“A holiday of eating. Doesn’t get much better than that. How’d you find out where I live?”
She looked at the floor. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Firefighters are a sorry lot. They’ll do just about anything for a pretty face.”
“Are you saying I’m pretty?”
Was she flirting with him? He resisted the impulse to flirt back because then he’d feel like an idiot if she shot him down again and walked out the door in five minutes. “You know I think you’re pretty, Sophie. Why are you here?”
“I… I’d like to talk to you.”
He looked closely at her and saw fear. Insecurity. And any reluctance he’d had to hearing her out trickled right on out the door. Coming here to talk to him was hard for her.
“Can we, um, go somewhere private?” she asked, looking over her shoulder toward the living room.
The others were caught up in the game again, but that’d be over any minute and then they’d trundle out to the kitchen for more food. “Let’s go upstairs.”
He led her up the narrow flight of stairs to his part of the house, a large studio-like room with his bed, a couch, TV and video game system, weights, and a desk with his ancient computer on it.
Several moving boxes were piled up in the corner, half full, as he’d started the search for his own place.
The room was not exactly neat. Had he known Sophie was coming over, he would’ve spent some time making it look better.
He grabbed a blanket from the couch and then opened the door on the long wall that led to the world’s smallest excuse for a balcony. Sophie followed him out.
“This thing doesn’t meet code, in case you were wondering,” he said as he sat on the edge of the platform and dangled his feet between two of the vertical posts that supported the railing.
He dropped down to the shallowly slanted roof of the kitchen below, which he considered his private, railing-less balcony.
As Sophie came down after him, he spread the blanket over the rough shingles to protect her bare legs.
They both sat down, keeping several inches between them.
“Do you have a view in daylight?” she asked, squinting in the direction of the shore.
He leaned toward her and pointed. “Between those two buildings, you can usually see some waves.”
“Nice.”
“Said the girl with the oceanfront condo.”
“Luckily, somebody made me see how lucky I was before it was too late.”
“Somebody, huh?”
“Yeah. Somebody who made me see quite a few things, actually.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, trying to determine her meaning, but she kept her gaze straight ahead.
“Nate … I’m not sure where to start, but I have lots to say.”
Cautious optimism started to take root deep inside. He tried to keep it in check because she could mean anything. But the fact that she’d tracked down his address, baked him brownies — shared the imperfection of her brownies with him, at that — and seemed willing to talk…
She scooted closer to him and folded the outside edge of the blanket over her legs, supporting her weight on her hands behind her.
“My dad showed up at my condo this morning.”
“How’d that go?” he asked carefully.
“Oh, probably about as good as you might guess. He apologized for being an awful father. Et cetera, et cetera.”
Nate tried to imagine how it would be if his mom showed up out of nowhere and took full responsibility — and blame — for failing him and his dad. While she’d popped in from time to time when he was younger, it’d never been to apologize. At least not genuinely.
That’d take some absorbing, at the very least, he guessed. “Was he? An awful father? I mean, I guess it’s obvious he must’ve been for you to hate him, but…”
“But you don’t really know because I haven’t told you anything.”
“Well, yeah. But don’t feel like you have to—”
She sat up and pulled her knees to her chest. “I want to.” She darted a look at him.
“Okay, that’s maybe not entirely true, but I need to.
I’m ready to. I’ve never talked about my family to anyone before, partly due to not liking to talk about them, but also partly due to not having anyone to tell.
Nobody who really pushed me. Nobody who truly wanted to know. ”
“Every family has a dark side, Sophie. They all look so normal from the outside, but they’re never normal. Normal doesn’t exist.”
“I kind of know that. It’s not that I think mine is so much worse than everyone else’s…”
“Then what?”