that’s nice, and I wish I could,” she offered at last, “but I take vacations over school breaks.”
His jaw set, his focus narrowed. “Call in sick.”
She began smoothing one corner of the sheet between her fingers. “I’ve got plans with my family.”
“You could see them anytime.”
Her gaze slid away, the turn of her head shutting him out. She looked uncomfortable. As if whatever she was thinking wasn’t something she wanted to share. And he was hanging every hope on it being some neurotic hang-up about discussing her menstrual cycle.
“I—well—”
This was ridiculous. He was railroading her into a trip he didn’t want her to come on rather than just asking. Man up. “Your period?”
“What?”
“Are you expecting it? Is that why you don’t want to come?”
Shifting to sit akimbo, Payton cocked her head in a way where Nate could almost see her calculating dates. Whatever excuse she’d been ready to offer, that wasn’t it. Just as well she had a reason to stay behind, particularly since he’d broached the subject and had her on the right track now.
“Actually, yes. In the next few days.” Then she squinted an eye at him. “Awfully intuitive. Do you have any hang-ups at all?”
He laughed as if she’d made some great joke, covering the relief that washed through him with tsunami force. “Not about that kind of thing. It’s a period. Big deal. Women get them.”
It was when they didn’t get them, you had something to worry about.
She wrinkled her nose. “But you grew up in a house with just your father. No sisters. And yet, you’re miles beyond what Brandt or Clint could handle.”
Nate shrugged, feeling lighter than he had in days. “It’s probably as much to do with my dad as anything else. Being the educator, he wasn’t really one to shy away from a topic because it happened to apply more specifically to the other gender. And because my mom wasn’t around to give the female perspective, he invariably felt an obligation to be as forthright as possible. The man was a chronic over-compensator.”
Payton laughed and held out her hand. “Tee shirt?”
Nate pulled one from his bag and handed it over.
“You know, you’ve never really told me about your mom. She was gone by the time we met. But beyond that…”
And here he thought things were turning around. “What do you want to know?”
She had a right to ask. It wasn’t any big deal, just not his favorite topic.
“What happened to her?”
“She took off when I was five. Life with Dad and me wasn’t right for her. She wanted something different, I guess. Hell, I don’t know, something else.”
A little line crinkled between her brows, suggesting she didn’t like where the story was going. But she needn’t have worried, there wasn’t much more than what he’d already said.
Leaning across the bed, he dropped a kiss on her knee. “It wasn’t too bad. She’d checked out long before she actually left, so it wasn’t like we’d suddenly lost something we didn’t know how to live without.”
“But what did she do? Where did she go?” He could all but see the unspoken question painted across her face. “How could she leave you?”
“I don’t know where she ended up. Dad did, for a while at least—he made sure she was okay. You know how he is. But for me, once she left, that was it.”
“But she’s your mother. She knew you. Loved you.”
A vision of a pretty smile and distracted eyes slipped through his memory. Soft hair and a nice smell. Remote. Unavailable. Watching her stare out the window, the door…down the road.
Nate zipped the bag and hefted it to the floor before meeting Payton’s waiting eyes. She hurt for him. He could see it there, but she didn’t need to. “Payton, some people aren’t cut out to have a family. I don’t think my mom was a bad person, I think she just didn’t understand the way she was until it was too late.” Deficient. Same as him.
Payton couldn’t imagine it. Giving a child five years of attachment and then ripping it away. What did that do to a little boy? What did it do to the man he became? “Is that why you don’t—?”
“Does it really matter?”
Maybe it did. Her lips parted to press the question, but the quick shake of Nate’s head and hardening of his eyes told her not to.
Ignoring the pinch in her heart, she pushed a smile to lips rebelling against it and tried for the make-light conversation that always smoothed over those sticky moments. “So you’ve got everything you need for the trip? Razor, toothbrush, stack of singles for the strip club?”
Nate barked out a laugh, his head hang-dog low. “What kind of man do you think I am?” Then, turning that impish blue glint of mischief on her, he grabbed her ankle and pulled her to him. “It’s a stack of fives, baby.”
“So bad,” she murmured, pulling him down to her mouth for a kiss. And like that they were fine. Casual and easy. “And, I know, I like it.” She loved it. As she knew she loved him, even though she wasn’t supposed to.
Two nights later, Payton curled into the corner of the sofa, phone held to her ear as Nate recounted his botched attempt to evade the strip club the evening before. Eyes closed, she listened to his voice, missing the feel of his arms around her. “I told you what would happen if you didn’t come with me.”
She sighed. “Poor Nate. The things you suffer for the love of your business.”
“She mocks.”
“She does. But only a little.” She smiled at Nate’s low chuckle. “I miss you.”
“You, too. When’s dinner with your mom and Brandt?”
“Tomorrow night. I’ll drive out after school.” She pulled the throw higher and tucked her legs beneath her. “It’s still strange going home, knowing my father won’t be there. You’d think after a year I’d be used to it.”
“I think it’s perfectly normal. You grew up in that house with him. In your heart, he’s a part of it. I’m sorry it hurts, though.”
She nodded, simply wishing Nate could be there with her before she thought better of it. Brandt would love that, particularly since this would be the first time she actually had to face him since her relationship began. She took a deep breath, knowing it was time for the call to come to an end. She was getting wistful and both of them needed to get up early the next morning. “Well,” she sighed, stretching across the cushions where she’d gone lax under the spell of his voice. “I better let you go.”
“Hey, Payton, one more thing?”
“Mmm-hmm?” God, she missed
