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She shook her head. “I want to know about you. Even the shitty stuff.”
He smiled sadly, his eyes dropping for a second before he said, “Here’s the thing about my mom. She did her best, but life dealt her one crappy hand after the other. She got pregnant with my sister when she was eighteen. Supposedly that guy had the decency to hang around for a year after she was born before he took off.”
Da
“Your father?”
Da
Leah frowned, and he said, “So she ended up a single mom to two kids from two different guys who wanted nothing to do with her.” Da
Leah pressed her lips together as Da
“That’s really sad,” Leah said softly, and he nodded.
“I know. So I don’t resent her. But I was left by myself most of the time because of it.”
“What about your sister?”
“My sister was older than me. She stayed away from the house most of the time because she could. And as soon as she became a teenager, I was lucky if I saw her twice a week.” Da
Leah nodded, and he said, “Things got better when I was in second grade. That’s when I met Bryan, and after that I spent pretty much all my time with him. He lived with his grandmother a few blocks over.”
“Catherine,” Leah said, and Da
“Yeah. His mom had him young too. Younger than my mother was. So Gram was the one who raised him so his mom could finish school.”
Leah dropped her eyes and swallowed. So, Catherine didn’t lose a grandson.
She lost a son.
“I’d come home from school and go to Bryan’s house instead of my own. And Gram would feed us, help us with our homework, tell us to wash our faces. You know, normal mom shit.”
“She calls you her boy,” Leah said, and Da
“She called us both that.” He looked down, poking at his food with the end of his chopsticks. “That’s how I got into cars, you know. Bryan’s grandfather was amazing with them. He was always messing with something in his car, even when it wasn’t broken. It drove Gram crazy,” he said with a laugh.
Leah smiled, and he said, “When we were older, we used to wait for him to get home from work so we could watch him mess around with the car. Eventually, he started letting us work on it too.”
He picked up his drink, taking a quick sip before he said, “When he died, Gram put away his life insurance policy. She always said she was saving it for a rainy day. But when Bryan and I decided to open our shop, she ended up giving us that money and then some so we could make it happen. Pretty much cleaned out her bank account for us.”
“Wow,” Leah said softly, trying to fathom how much she loved these two boys. “So it was Bryan’s shop too?”
Da
“Da
“Da
Leah smiled sadly. “You take such good care of her.”
“She deserves it,” Da
Leah nodded, and it was quiet for a minute as the two of them fiddled with the food in front of them. Suddenly Da
“So,” he said, taking another bite of food. “Is your brother older or younger?”
“Older,” she said. “He’s twenty-nine.”
Da
“What do you mean?” Leah asked, dipping a pot sticker in soy sauce.
“After what that piece of shit did to you. Has he been tough on all your boyfriends since then?”
“Oh,” Leah said, averting her eyes.
“You don’t have to tell me. I was just wondering. I’d grill the shit out of my sister’s boyfriends if it were me, and we’re not half as close as you guys seem to be.”
“No, it’s not that I don’t want to,” she said, twisting the fork between her fingers. “It’s just that...I don’t have an answer.”
Da
“None?” he asked, unable to hide his surprise.
Leah felt warmth in her cheeks, and the knowledge that she was blushing only caused her to blush more deeply.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said gently. “I’m just surprised. No one’s approached you in two years?”
“No, I was approached. I just…” She trailed off with a shrug.
“Didn’t trust anyone?”
“I didn’t trust myself. I spent years thinking Scott was this amazing person. I would have sworn to it. I turned my back on people because of it. And it just messed with my head that I had been so wrong. After that I just didn’t trust my own judgment anymore.” She shrugged. “Besides, my dad needed to be taken care of for a while after that, and I just threw myself into that because…”
“Because it was like your penance.”
It wasn’t a question, and she didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
“So you haven’t dated anyone in two years?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“What about…” He trailed off, ru
She shook her head again, and she saw him fall back against his chair with his brow raised. “Whoa,” he said so softly, she couldn’t even be sure he’d said it.
She needed to change the subject.
“So what did you want to show me?”
He smiled softly, seeing right through what she was doing, but he played along.
“Do you want to see it now?”
“Sure,” she said, and he nodded, pushing his chair back from the table before he stood. He motioned with his head for her to follow him as he made his way toward the door.
“Are we leaving?” she asked.
“No, it’s in the building, it’s just not up here,” he said, grabbing his keys off the small table in the entryway. He held the door open and allowed her to step outside before he closed the door behind them and locked it.
They walked to the elevator in silence, and every few seconds he would glance over at her. He seemed nervous, although Leah was aware that she might just be projecting her own anxiety on to him.
As they stepped inside the elevator, Da
“The basement?” she asked.
“It’s in storage,” he said simply as he looked up to watch the lighted numbers go out one by one as they descended the floors.
With one final ding, the doors opened, and Da