nice.”
“My point exactly. With the benefit of hindsight, I believe they thought you needed the security of a big family.”
He smiled, but it was more out of pathos than anything else. “My folks tried. They did. They loved us. They didn’t have a gift for child rearing.”
“Then isn’t it good you had a backup plan?”
“Brilliant, even in third grade.”
“Now I’m seeing the old Nate.” She felt more like herself, as if they’d turned a corner. Not a huge one, but enough to start with. “So, ready for the reveal? God, it’s hard to admit I still live here, even though it’s becoming common again for people my age, no thanks to the recession.”
“I like that you do. You’ve always been connected to your clan. I envy that.”
“Depends on why I do it.” She opened her door and stepped back to let him in.
He didn’t go far, only a few steps, but she noticed he looked at everything. Her queen bed with the pastel sheets, the hint of lilac on the walls and in the reading chair. She wondered if he remembered the posters of all those boy bands, and Doogie Howser and Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Everything had been pink back then and had ruffles. There’d been a canopy, naturally, and stuffed animals. An entire display case of her tiaras and trophies from being Little Miss Gramercy Park and Little Miss Manhattan, and more than a dozen others. Some were still on display in the living room alongside the boys’ sports awards.
“I was right,” Nate said.
“About?”
“Your good taste. Although the room’s not quite the same without that framed picture of Leonardo Di-Caprio.”
“Who was all of fourteen at the time.”
He went to one of the pictures on the wall. It wasn’t anything fancy. She’d found it at a local art festival, and she’d spent more on the frame than the picture. It was an ordinary bedroom, small and neat, and filled with light. There was an open book on the bedside table, a shawl left draped on a big chair. It was cozy and quiet, not something she’d felt often growing up.
“I don’t spend a lot of time in houses anymore,” he said. “Or beds. I’m lucky to get a cot sometimes. I’ve even gotten used to hammocks.”
“What drew you away, Nate? Danny said you’d wanted to help after the tsunami, but he never said why.”
Nate turned, and he looked so good, so content. He was wearing jeans, a Henley shirt, boots. She could picture him doing errands, getting his hands dirty. But once he’d grown out of his terrible years, before he’d gone away, she remembered him as a reader. He’d liked architecture and didn’t seem unhappy that he was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. She’d been surprised at his humanitarian streak.
That sounded kind of awful when she thought about it so bluntly, but she’d never seen him go out of his way much. Admittedly, her perspective had been limited.
“I’m not sure. I don’t think I was running to as much as I was running from.”
“Was it so bad?”
“No. It’s not as if I was abused or mistreated or anything like that. I don’t know. I guess I had read too many books about adventures. I wanted some of my own before I settled down.”
“From the looks of it you’re not done yet.”
“Nope. Not yet.”
“How will you know?” she asked. “When, you mean?” Shannon nodded.
“No idea. I don’t think too far into the future, to tell you the truth. Everything is so immediate and real in a way I have a hard time describing. It’s interesting to be back here, to shift my perspective.” He touched the edge of her bed. “I like your room. It’s calm, and it’s pretty, but there’s still you all over it.”
She would have liked to have asked him more about his other life, but she went with the program. “What do you mean, me all over it?”
He walked over to her dresser. “Playbills, perfume, ticket stubs, lectures. I’m surprised you didn’t end up on the stage. You loved it so much as a kid.”
“Some people would say I’ve made my life a stage.”
“What would you say?”
She waved the comment away with her free hand. “Sales, marketing. It’s all just acting, isn’t it? Anyway, I imagine Mom is getting antsy. We should go down.”
He nodded, but turned to take another sweeping look at her small room. “It’s home but it isn’t,” Nate said softly.
Shannon wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or himself. “What?”
“I’m glad I’m here. I’d forgotten I had memories I wanted to keep.”
“About New York?”
“No. This house. This family. You.”
“Me? I was the pain-in-the-ass Princess. What would you want to remember about that?”
“You were the prettiest little girl I’d ever known. By the time I was getting ready for NYU, you’d gotten even more beautiful. Now, you’re …”
She could feel the blush again and realized it was going to be a problem. “I’m …?”
He inhaled deeply. “We should go eat.” He walked past her and out the door.
Shannon touched her cheeks, willing them to cool off, wondering what had just happened.
NATE HAD WOKEN UP BEFORE the alarm. He’d adjusted to the time change, being in the Northern Hemisphere, and the sounds of the city. He hadn’t done as well with adjusting to the beds.
At the hotel he’d never found the sweet spot, so those nights had been crappy. Myles’s bed was even worse. It sagged in the middle, so no matter where he started, he ended up sinking, his back curving unnaturally. While in the hottest shower he could stand, he’d debated changing rooms after Danny left, but that would be weird seeing as it was now Mrs. Fitz’s sanctuary.
So, he’d work in a couple of massages while he was here. The shower had helped get the kinks out, but now he was running late. He finished shaving, then wiped the shaving cream away. Making sure the towel around his waist was secure, he opened the bathroom door and bumped right into Shannon.
He decided to ignore that his startled squeak was almost the same pitch as Shannon’s. “Sorry, sorry.”
She’d backed up a couple of steps, pulling the top of her robe together. “No, I just didn’t expect …”
Her gaze had gone from his face to his chest. And stayed there. He checked. The towel hadn’t fallen.
She let go of her robe to gesture at his body, at least from the neck down. “When did all that happen?”
He
