his perspective back.
He took a quick shower. When he left his room and entered the living space, he found Harper at the table surrounded by boxes of Chinese food.
“I like Chinese.”
“Good.”
He walked over to the table, saw she’d found plates and utensils and took a seat.
“Your area of the city has just about every type of restaurant imaginable.”
“It’s part of the appeal.”
He lifted a dish, filled it with General Tso’s chicken, some vegetables and an egg roll.
“Oh, and I paid for it myself. I’m not destitute. And I’m not a charity case. I just need some help transitioning.”
Point number one to be discussed. How she wanted to be treated. “I’m sorry if I made you feel that way.”
“You didn’t. I just wanted to fix some misinterpretations.”
“Okay.”
She turned her attention to dishing out some food for herself. Her short hair gave her an angelic look, enhanced by the curve of her full lips. Her casual, almost grungy clothes took him back to a decade ago, when he was a kid who listened to hip-hop and lived right next door to the girl he thought the most beautiful woman he’d ever met.
And that was point number two they had to discuss. Eight years had passed since he’d had a crush on her and she’d started dating Clark. They weren’t those people anymore. He didn’t have a mad crush on her. He’d had a mad crush on the girl she’d used to be. Since then, she’d gotten married, lost a husband, had a baby alone. They weren’t picking up where they’d left off.
He almost rolled his eyes at his own stupidity. He hadn’t even asked how she was.
“So... How are you doing?”
She shook her head. “You mean aside from being almost homeless?”
“Don’t make a joke. Clark was my best friend.” There. He’d said it. Point number three that he needed to get into this conversation. Clark had been his best friend. “You lost him. You were pregnant. You went through that alone. And now you’re facing raising a daughter alone. If we’re going to do this—live together—we’re going to do it right. Not pretend everything is fine. We used to be friends. We could be friends again.”
She set down her chopsticks. “Okay. If you really want to know, I spent most of the year scared to death. It took me a couple of weeks to wrap my head around the fact that he was really gone. But the more I adjusted, the quieter the house got. And the quieter the house got, the more I realized how alone I was.”
“And you couldn’t even talk to your parents?”
“My mom never had anything good to say about Clark, so after a visit or two when I was lonely, I quit going over.”
She stopped talking, but Seth waited, glad he’d decided to go this route. He needed to know what he was dealing with, and if she’d been alone for twelve long months she probably needed someone to talk to.
“I didn’t shut them out completely. My mom came with me to a doctor’s appointment or two and then we’d have lunch. But every time, the conversation would turn into a discussion of what I should do with my life now that Clark was gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. My mother’s a bulldozer. She sees the way a thing should go and she pushes. Whether it’s the right thing or not.”
“Have they seen the baby?”
“Yes. If I’d completely broken off ties, my mom would have mounted a campaign to get me back. So, I kept them at a distance. I let her stay and help the week after Crystal was born. But she couldn’t stop talking about remodeling the condo to bring it up to standards, insinuating that with Clark gone I could do it right, and the whole time I knew I was broke and going to have to sell. Every time I’d try to tell her, she’d blast Clark.” She lifted her eyes to catch his gaze. “That’s how I knew I couldn’t move in with them.”
Seth leaned back in his chair. “I guess.”
The room got quiet. Her mother wasn’t the hellish dictator his father had been, but he wouldn’t have wanted to live with her mom, either.
“So, what’s up with you?”
He laughed, glad for her obvious change of subject to lighten the mood. “Not much. Jake’s a much better businessman than my father was, so working with him is good.”
“And your mom?”
He snorted. “My mom isn’t quite as bad as your mom, but we have our issues.”
She nodded sagely. “Sometimes the best you can do is avoid them for the sake of peace.”
He’d never say that the feelings he had around his mother were peaceful. He had a million questions he’d like to ask. Like, why she’d said nothing when his father embarrassed or humiliated him and Jake. Or better yet, why she’d stayed married to a man who was awful as a husband and father? She’d known he was cheating. She’d known he wasn’t a good father. Yet she’d stayed. Forcing them all to live a lie.
Deciding he didn’t want to burden Harper with any of that, he rose. “Do you like baseball?”
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?” He sniffed a laugh. “There’s a game on tonight that I’d love to see. If you want to watch, too, I can watch out here. If not, I can watch on the television in my bedroom.”
“I don’t want you to change your routines for me.”
“I won’t.”
The sound of the baby crying burst from her phone. She held it up. “Baby monitor is attached to this. And it looks like I’m going to be busy for a while. Go ahead and put your game on.”
Harper walked into her room sort of happy. It had been nice to talk about Clark, her mom and even being alone. She wasn’t trying to make a new best friend, but she had been lonely. Having someone to talk to, to share a meal with, had been more of a treat than she’d expected it would be.
With Crystal on her arm she walked out to the common area and found Seth was nowhere around. Thinking he must have decided to watch the game in his room, she warmed a bottle, fed Crystal, played with her, let her sit in her little seat that rocked her sideways, then finally put her into bed.
After a quick shower, and still wired from their talk, she put on a pair of pajamas and returned to the living room to watch TV.
A few minutes later, Seth returned to the main living area. He held up his phone. “Work call. I also took a shower while I was back there.” He set the phone on the center island and pulled a beer from the fridge. “Want one?”
She shook her head. “No. I might have to get up in the middle of the night.”
That
