Sure, if a person didn’t mind that her entire family ignored her one request. “Totally. It’s just the usual—my kids driving me crazy.”
“Ah.”
She immediately regretted saying that out loud. It was one thing to be driven crazy by one’s children. It was quite another to admit to it publicly. “I’m not as bad a mother as I sound,” she said quickly.
“I don’t think you sound like a bad mother.”
She knew she did, but all mothers were bad in some way. “I really do love my kids. I mean, I would kill for them. But sometimes, I’d like to kill them.” She glanced up from her phone. “The youngest has been sending me cat videos today. No explanation, just videos of cats being awesome. The oldest one just texted to ask why I never buy hot chocolate for them, that didn’t I know when it gets cold like this, they really like hot chocolate?”
“Oh. Youarea bad mother,” Harrison said. “Major parenting fail, Ms. Casey.”
“One among many.” She put the phone face down on the counter. “I told him to suck it up, because that’s the kind of supportive mom I am.” She laughed. Was she so wrong to not like her kids sometimes? She loved them, always. Liked them most of the time. And then there were those moments she really, truly, did not. “So how did you manage to avoid having kids?” she asked.
He shot her a look.
“Sorry,” she said immediately. She could really be flippant sometimes. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I’m sonosey. I can’t help but be overly curious about people. I think it’s due to a lack of anything interesting in my own life.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how overly curious are you?”
“Well…Mr. Franklin, who lives across the street, is a widower, and he’s been getting a package every day from UPS. Like, exactly the same sized box every day. I’ve counted up to twelve so far.”
Harrison paused in his seasoning of the steaks. “That’s strange.”
“Right? What could be in those identical boxes? My brother told me to mind my own business, and I know I should, but still…it’s kind of interesting, right?”
“It’s weirdly interesting, I’m not going to lie,” he agreed.
She was grateful that he didn’t seem appalled by her, at least. “But, listen, I’m going to do my best to not be nosey. You don’t deserve that.” She made a show of crossing her heart.
“Thank you, but I don’t care if you count my packages. I’ve got nothing to hide. To answer your question, I don’t have kids because I have never been married.” He arched a brow at her and smiled. “I bet you’rereallycurious now.”
“I am so insanely curious I may have to gnaw my hand off to keep from asking.”
He laughed. “I guess I didn’t really think about kids when I was younger. I didn’t have a ticking biological clock or anything like that, and always figured there would be time for a wife and a family.”
“Let me guess—afraid of commitment,” she said. “A lot of men are, you know.”
“I don’t think that’s true. All my colleagues and fellow golfers seem to be married.”
“Yeah,” she said, thinking of her workplace of forty people, most of them men. Married men. “I honestly don’t know if that’s true, either. Why do I never stop talking?”
He grinned at her. “I like talking to you. The truth is, I travel a lot. I was never in one place long enough to really make that kind of connection.”
“Seriously? Never?”
He put the steaks on the built-in grill. “Okay, maybe notnever. A few years back I was in a long-term relationship that I thought would lead to marriage and kids at some point. But…my schedule got in the way of it. Or at least our downfall started with my schedule.”
Amy immediately had so many questions and no right to ask them. “How often do you travel?”
“Eight or nine months a year. For a couple of years, I was gone every month.”
Yikes.She couldn’t imagine being away from home that long each year. For one, her house would be a complete disaster if she wasn’t there to pick up after all the boys. And for two, she would miss them terribly—all her previous comments to the contrary notwithstanding. “It’s hard to even get to the grocery store when you travel that much, right?” she asked. She stood up from the bar and went into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
“Exactly.”
“The good news is, there’s still time for you, if you want a family. You’re young.”
Harrison laughed and reached around her, pulling out a bunch ofasparagus he’d bought. “I’ll be fifty next month. Not exactly the right age for starting a family.”
