He’d have to check that out. Should be easy enough to find.
“Yes,” she said. “Here is your dessert, Archer. What do you say to Jayce?”
“Thank you for lunch and dessert,” Archer said.
He got the hint that that conversation was over.
“You were gone longer than I thought you’d be,” his mother said when Jayce walked in the door thirty minutes later.
He hated they could keep track of him living here. If he had thought things out more, he could have stayed in Charlotte and rented a place short term, but those last two weeks of work were too stressful and all he wanted to do was escape.
As shocked as his parents were over the change in his life, they welcomed him home with open arms like he knew they would.
“I ran into someone at the park,” he said. “We played hoops and then went to lunch.”
“That’s great. Who was it?”
He was on the fence if he wanted to say, but it didn’t matter all that much. It wasn’t as if he got Farrah’s number or knew where she lived.
They parted ways like casual acquaintances at the park, not like two people who’d just spent hours together. Not like he’d just had the best time he could remember in over a decade with the girl he’d never truly forgotten.
The one who still made his heart race, his palms sweat, and his spine tingle like they were back in high school.
The smile hadn’t left his face the entire time. If he wasn’t laughing at Farrah’s quick wit, it was at Archer’s clever little comments, or the two of them together, their bond as natural as it was entertaining.
Over a decade ago, he never pictured the girl he dated as a mother. But seeing her now with Archer, he couldn’t imagine her as anything else. She was damn good at it. It showed in the way Archer listened when she laid down her voice firm, or testedwhen she let the rope loose. The easy rhythm of their laughter and the way they teased.
It mirrored the warmth he’d grown up with, the kind he knew would always be there if he returned home. Like he had.
“Farrah Hughes. Lane. Guess it’s Lane now, but she’s divorced. She has an eight-year-old son and we played some hoops like the good old days with Farrah and me, then got some burgers.”
“That’s great,” his mother said. “I’m glad you ran into someone. I always thought she was such a sweet girl. What happened between you two? You remained friends.”
He shrugged. “No clue. Just one of those high school things. We hung out in the same group. You know how it goes. Everyone ends up dating at some point or another, or has a crush. She knew I was leaving and we both wanted to just have fun in college. I think it went the way it should have.”
“That’s normally the way it goes,” his mother said. “Your father and I are going to see the baby if you want to join us? I’ll make a later dinner if you’re good with that.”
“Don’t wait on me,” he said. “Live your lives as if I’m not here. You two go enjoy Hunter. I’ll stop over again later this week.”
His parents left, giving him the house to himself. He had the whole second floor, his old room and bathroom he’d shared with Gabe between them, then the loft he was using as a living room to feel some separation.
He shouldn’t feel like such a loser, but couldn’t help it when he’d found out Farrah had been married to a doctor.
So he could forget any thought that she might want a date with a guy who couldn’t figure out his life in his thirties.
“What areyou so worked up about?”
Stacy McCarthy turned to her husband, Jim, in their car on the way to see her grandson.
“Jayce came back and said he spent time with one of his exes from high school at the park and then went to lunch with Farrah and her son.”
“Farrah Lane. Our PA at the doctor’s office?”
“That’s her,” she said. “I didn’t let him know we knew her now. Doesn’t seem as if she did either. He played it off as they had a good time, some burgers, and that was it.”
“It probably was,” he said.
“No, it was more. I saw the look in his eyes when I asked what had happened to them.”
