“So, you never wanted kids?”
I draw in a breath and release it slowly. It’s a question I haven’t been asked in a while. “It’s not that I’ve never wanted them…”
There’s a warmth in her expression that makes me feel weirdly safe talking about this.
“I guess I never met anyone I wanted to create a family with. Certainly not in recent years, anyway. There was a time when I had this image in my mind of what kind of family I’d have, what kind of dad I’d be. But over the years, it just… slipped away, I suppose.”
Her voice is quiet. “Do you regret not having kids?”
I look down at the hands I’ve clasped between my spread thighs. “No. I don’t have regrets about anything.”
She releases a short huff. “You’re lucky. I have regrets about everything.”
My chin tips up sharply. “Even becoming a mom?”
“Oh God, no. Never. I would never regret becoming a mom. It’s really the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me. No. I regret other things, like not going back to work, like moving to the opposite end of the country, like plucking my eyebrows in the nineties. Boy, does that bad decision still haunt me.”
My gaze drifts to her perfectly coiffed brows. “They look fine to me.”
“They’d look better if I hadn’t plucked them into near-extinction,” she grinds out, monotone.
She falls silent then, and I can tell something is weighing on her mind.
“What’s California like?” I ask, wanting to keep the moment light. I love seeing her smile, hearing her laugh.
Her shoulders drop a little. “It’s great. I loved the weather and the lifestyle. I had friends there—mostly other moms—andPaige’s life is obviously there. But it’s not New York. New York will always be my home.”
For some reason, that statement makes my chest fill out. “What do you love about New York?”
She sighs wistfully and shakes her head. “The craziness…”
I laugh. “Yeah, it has a lot of crazy.”
“I love how busy it is and how there’s always something going on, whether it’s a new gallery opening up, or a new event. There’s an edginess to it that you simply don’t find anywhere else.”
“Yeah, I totally get it. New York has the best of everything and the worst of everything and yet, somehow, the two things co-exist.”
She smiles at that, a small, knowing curve of her lips, like I’ve said something that lands deeper than I meant it to.
“That’s exactly it,” she says softly. “The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly—it all lives side by side and no one apologizes for it.”
I watch her as she speaks, the way her eyes drift past me, like she’s seeing a version of the city layered over the one outside the window.
“You can be completely alone there,” she continues, “and somehow not feel lonely. The city doesn’t care if you start over or mess up, or become someone else if you need to.”
I huff out a low breath, something settling in my chest.
“Yeah,” I agree. “It may not always feel like it, but New York is always on your side.”
Her gaze flicks back to mine and something shifts between us, subtle but unmistakable. It unbalances me in a way that makes me never want to be balanced again.
Then I remember where we are and what’s burning a hole in my inside pocket—what I’d had biked up to me overnight.
After seeing the way Clara Miller’s gaze dropped to Erin’s finger, the judgement that filled it, and the strange effect it had on my sense of masculinity, I put in a call.
She watches with deflated eyes as I reach into my inside pocket and pull out a small, square box. “I have something for you.”
Her lashes lift and her cheeks drain of blood.
