Page 21 of Filthy Player
Now, I was guiding us into deeper conversation.
“Your dad’s a trip,” I said. “He totally kicks ass.”
We were snacking on peanuts, having a beer and eating our salads while we waited for them to deliver our steaks so we could go grill them. She took a drink from her Miller Lite, and her eyes slid to the left.
“Thanks. He’s the best man I know.”
“How’d he end up in a wheelchair?”
She sighed and the depth of her pain filled her face. “He’s had two strokes.” She set down her beer and wiped her hands together like she had to warm them. “The first one hit just over a year ago, the second one a few months later. That’s the one that left him paralyzed. He’s in therapy and slowly getting better, but some days are worse than others.”
“And you quit your job at a television station to come home and help take care of him?”
Her brows rose and she tilted her head. “Are you sure you’re not stalking me? Maybe checking my Facebook?”
“No.” I hadn’t even considered it. “Your dad and Mike are talkative guys.”
“Figures.” She pulled a face and took a moment before continuing. I had the suspicion she was debating how much of her life to give me. What she didn’t know was that I was beginning to want it all from her. Every time she opened up about something, I fell harder. “It wasn’t a choice. He’s all I ever had until Mike came into our lives.”
“How’d that happen?” I leaned forward and rested my forearms on the table. He was young and definitely wasn’t related to them based on what I’d picked up through conversation, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t become their family.
Her nose scrunched into an adorable pout. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“I told you I was going to.” I shrugged shamelessly.
“Yeah, but…” her voice trailed and she lifted her hair off her neck, letting it drop back down like a silk curtain to her shoulders and beyond. “Okay. Mike was a foster kid. A good kid, though, just had some crappy life stuff happen but who doesn’t, you know?”
“I do know.”
For a brief moment, sadness filled her eyes. She knew about my mom and wasn’t hiding it, but she didn’t dwell, thank Christ. “Anyway, he came into my dad’s office one day when he was only fifteen years old, said he needed a job and didn’t know anything about cars, but he’d work hard. Dad spent the first month giving him the shit jobs. He cleaned the bathrooms, emptied oil buckets and swept the floors. Dad said it was to test his mettle. Mike showed up every day after school, stayed until we closed and didn’t complain once. After that, he just sort of stuck.”
“Your dad’s a good man.”
“The best.” She grinned wide and easy. Now I knew how to get her talking…mention her old man. Simple as that.
“What about your mom?”
The smile fell. “She left when I was four. We’re better off without her.”
The chill in her voice set me on edge. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She took another drink. “I mean, she wanted the guy she met in college, the football star. Dad never wanted to go pro, said he didn’t have the talent to start and didn’t want to bounce around pro teams playing back-up for his career, always moving. He wanted to have a family and settle.”
“And your mom didn’t?”
“Nope. Dad said she tried, but after they’d been in Raleigh for a few years, she turned resentful. Then she had me and really couldn’t deal. He came home from work and her stuff was gone. She’d left me with the sitter without telling anyone where she was going.”
“No shit?” The blasé way she spoke about her mom stunned me almost as much as a woman who would do that to her kids. You heard an awful lot of men taking off, my unknown dad being the perfect example. It always startled me more when it was a woman.
“Do you ever talk to her?”
She gave me a disgusted look. “I haven’t had anything to do with her since I was seven. After she left, she got remarried to some rich guy in Michigan. Then she started sending a bunch of money, all the expensive toys a girl could ever want, but it sucked. All I wanted was a mom, and she didn’t give a shit enough about me to even stay in the same state. I made my dad send it all back and told him to tell her I didn’t want to see or hear from her again.”
Jesus. If there was a worst mom in the world award, I knew who I’d choose as the winner. “I’m sorry,” I said when Paige was still gritting her teeth. “I didn’t mean to bring up a bad memory. That must have been hard.”
“She was selfish enough to think she could buy me with money. And too selfish to see that before she left, even if we didn’t have much, we had everything we needed in a family. I always figured I was better without her.”
Damn. This woman. She blew my mind. Not only with her wisdom and her sexy pouty lips but her heart. She liked her simple life, and I loved that about her.
