“Well, we’re off. We have to go visit Michael’s father,” I said to Mom.
She pulled me into a big hug. “See you soon, sweetheart.”
Michael grabbed my hand and led me to the opposite side of the building, where his father’s room was. When we walked into the room, his father was lying in his bed and watching some angsty soap opera that Dad used to watch when I was young. I remembered sitting in his lap with a big bowl of Fruity Pebbles, watching women throw water in each other’s face and men who had so much of their own damn drama.
When he saw us, he smiled at Michael, then at me. “Michael, you brought someone for me.” He wiggled his eyebrows at him, and I stifled a laugh. “What’s your name?”
“Mia.”
He gave Michael the eye and tried sitting up in his bed, his arms too weak to support himself. Before he could collapse back on the bed, Michael pulled him into a seated position, and I smiled at him. If he was this patient with older adults, I wondered how good he would be with ki—
No. Not right now, Mia.
After about fifteen minutes, his father got tired of talking. We left him with his soap opera and turned the light off.
“Your father’s nice,” I said, shutting the door behind us.
He took a steadying breath and pushed his hands in his pockets, as if he didn’t agree. “He is now. Hasn’t always been.” Michael turned his lips up. “Threw me out of the house when Melissa was born. One of those strict,doesn’t take any shitfathers.”
I intertwined our fingers. Despite everything he had been through, Michael had turned out to be so successful. Being thrown out of his house, taking care of a baby when he was young, dealing with all of his ex-wife’s shit … it made me think that I could be that successful one day too.
“I tried to be different when raising Melissa,” Michael said. “I wanted her to learn responsibility, but now, she barely talks to me.”
I frowned at him, feeling the brunt of his guilt. It was because of me that he felt shitty. I didn’t know if Michael would’ve ever thrown Melissa out if she had cheated on her boyfriend with someone else.
“I’m sorry,” I said, rubbing his bicep. “She’ll come around. Maybe not soon, but she will.”
As we walked into the lobby, the woman at the counter looked over at us again. There were other nurses this time, staring at me like they were disgusted, their noses wrinkling, eyes narrowing. I glanced over at them and curled my fingers tighter around Michael’s bicep, not wanting to stir up trouble here for visiting.
I hated to think this, but I knew it was only bound to get worse than this. People would continue to stare. They’d continue to judge. And with Michael’s ex-wife, they’d start to hear the rumors about us.
CHAPTER4
MIA
When we left St. Barbars, the sky was a midnight blue already. I slid into the passenger side of Michael’s car and let him drive aimlessly through the city. He rested his hand on my thigh and took an exit we hadn’t ever been down, but I didn’t complain. I loved going on adventures with him even if it was to the grocery store at eleven p.m. It didn’t matter to me.
“I have a dinner party with some people from the office on Friday night.” He turned onto a dirt street and drove into the wooded area. He paused for a moment and glanced over at me. “Do you want to come with me?”
I gulped. Michael worked as a principal architect on the Vestige Towers Project in the center of the city, which was projected to become the next hub in the nation within the next few years. I hadn’t met anyone from his work before, and to say I was nervous was an understatement.
He glanced over at me and chuckled deeply. “It’ll be fine, Mia. It’s just dinner.”
But I couldn’t stop imagining about what his coworkers would think of us. Those ladies at the assisted living center surely had their opinions on our relationship. Hell, the receptionist had thought I was his daughter, for Christ’s sake. What would his coworkers think?
I grasped his hand and squeezed it tightly. “Do they know about me?”
“Of course they do.”
“No, I mean … do they know about my age?” I asked, sucking on my cheek.
It was one thing to tell his coworkers he had a new girlfriend. It was another for him to show up at a fancy dinner party with someone half his age.
He sighed through his mouth. “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t care what anyone else thinks of this age gap between us? I’m not going to let them make my choices for me. It’s me and you, Mia.”
There was a small clearing ahead. He drove into it and parked his car. My eyes widened at the entire view of the city—the sparkling lights from the Vestige Towers, the hum from Market Square, even some city workers exiting their buildings this late at night.
I glanced back over at him and smiled. “Me and you,” I whispered.
