“Some things you may just not want to know.”
“They were high school sweethearts, and their first time was in the garage or something, so maybe it was nostalgic.” I smile, happy for my still-very-much-in-love best friend. “But Vince and I didn’t have that long-term bond. When it ended, I think we were both relieved.”
“So, it’s you and Wednesday against the world over there in Duck Falls?”
“It is, and I like it that way.”
He pauses for a sip of his iced tea. “You seem pretty tough. Pretty good at holding your own.”
“Thanks. I think we are too. It’s freeing now that it’s just us. I can focus on my business, on my kid. I don’t have to worry about a man,” I say, relieved all over again. I’m so glad that my time is mine, my chores are for me. Glad, too, that I learned how to say fuck it to worries that had plagued me for years.
“The business is growing?”
“Yes,” I say with a smile. “Just last night, after I delivered the hated vegetables, I finished fixing Betty Juniper’s spice rack. She lives down the street. And I’m hoping to snag a deal to do some work for Nina Clawson at the boba tea shop, but the competition is fierce.”
“You’re fierce. I wouldn’t want to go up against you,” he says.
“Thanks.” I appreciate the compliment, though I don’t tell him how long it took me to get my act together work-wise, to figure out what I actually wanted to do for a living. That I’d puttered around as a handywoman for my father’s construction company for years before I figured out that I wanted to run my own business. He’s now retired, having given some of his company’s assets to me when I started.
But old habits die hard, and it took me that long to drown out the soundtrack in my head: What if you fail, what if it doesn’t work, what if you suck at it?
Lowering the volume on that voice took ages and lots of tough love from my best friend, but that’s not what this conversation is about.
“What about you and your son?” Picking up my fork again, I take a bite of my salad as I shift the conversation back to him and his family.
“Ah. It’s kind of an interesting story.” He glances at a man pushing a stroller past us, who snags a table a few feet away.
“Interesting how?”
“Interesting in the fact that I didn’t even know I had a kid until he was almost seven.”
He’s right. That’s got to be a helluva story.
8
January
Liam makes that admission in a light tone, with a “told you it was unusual” self-awareness. It must be a complicated situation, though, and I normally like someone who can poke a little fun at himself. But not if it’s a front to hide pain.
“That definitely sounds like a story you don’t hear every day.” I leave him an opening, and when he doesn’t fill it, I say, “You don’t have to tell me what happened, but I’d like to know.”
He leans back in the chair, dragging his hand across his chin. He sighs, but it’s not so much that he’s deciding whether to speak but more like where to start. “Ten years ago, I had—and this is not the unusual part of the story—a one-night stand. She was from England, but lived in Florida. She was in town for a conference I was attending too. We connected over a drinks thing and ended up at my place—which she left at two in the morning. Just slipped out of my apartment and out of my life. No ‘look me up if you’re ever in West Palm Beach.’ Didn’t even stay for breakfast. It was seven years before I heard from her again.”
I fear that the story is heading in an unhappy direction, and my heart sinks as Liam’s expression shifts.
His lips go straight, his brown eyes brimming with sadness. “She literally showed up on my doorstep. Rang the bell. Told me she had terminal cancer, no family, and a child who was mine.”
A cold twist of sympathy pulls at me, thinking of all those tragic things falling on someone at once, especially on a child like Liam’s son. “I’m so sorry, Liam. That’s so hard for everyone involved.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that,” he says. No teasing or sarcasm now. He takes my words as seriously as I mean them, and his thanks is just as earnest. “Yes, it was rough on so many levels. I barely knew her, but my heart would have gone out to a total stranger in her situation. Alone, sick, and with a kid—my kid. We did DNA tests to verify that Ethan was my son, got the legalities settled, and she stayed with a friend in New York for the last few weeks of her life while Ethan came to live with me. I helped out some, and he visited her. Not much longer after that, she passed away. Everything was quite sudden.” He blows out a long stream of air as he brings the story back to the present. “That’s how I suddenly became parent to a seven-year-old I had no idea existed.”
