“What does your dad do?”
“He’s a head coach in the NFL.”
“Would I know him?”
“If you follow a lot of football.”
I want to quiz her more about her dad, but that wouldn’t be helpful right now. “So, your mom didn’t handle the rise to fame very well?”
“That would be the understatement of the year. She wanted to use it to make connections, meet people, and become somebody. Or at least have her daughters become somebody. But when Dad wasn’t working, he wanted to be home. He didn’t want to be vacationing with random people or going to parties. He wanted to take Willa and me rock climbing or biking.” She laughs. “Or he’d be holed up in his study, working on strategies and practice plans for when he was back with the team. Willa got her work ethic from him.”
I smile at that. Willa spends more time working at my company than I do.
“It’s safe to say, the family imploded after that. Dad buried himself in work and hardly came home, and then Mom filed for divorce. She got her five minutes of fame in the newspapers and ate it up. But it turns out that an NFL coach’s divorce isn’t exactly the news of the year, so any attention she had from it was short-lived. Once Willa had her license, Mom moved to the Hamptons and left us to fend for ourselves.”
“You didn’t go move in with your dad?”
“He traveled a lot for work. He worked year-round at that point.”
“So, you guys raised yourselves for the rest of high school?” My voice is tinged with a dangerously angry tone.
Lucy laughs. “It’s not as dramatic as that. We were sixteen and seventeen. Mom still made sure all of the bills were paid and that we were taken care of financially. It’s not like she kicked us out or anything.”
I look her straight in the eye. “She abandoned you. And so did your dad.”
She opens her mouth to refute what I said.
“No. No excuses for them. What they did was wrong. I don’t care if you had almost graduated. That’s still neglect.”
She snaps her mouth closed.
“Would you leave our future children alone?” I ask with a soft smile.
“Never,” she answers immediately.
“See? That’s because you’re a wonderful person, and you’d be a fantastic mother.”
She smiles at me. “Ourchildren?”
I grasp her hand in mine and adjust my pillow with my other hand. “Lucy?”
“Yes?”
“Go to bed.”
The bed shakes with her laughter. But she squeezes my hand, and I fall asleep with a smile on my face.
TWENTY-FIVE
Lucy
There’s something hard and heavy lying across my stomach. My first thought is, it’s Alexander, but Alexander isn’t here.
I pry my eyes open and take in the light-blue walls. My eyes land on a painting of a ship that looks like it could be in a pirate movie. There’s another picture of three snowy mountains, blown up and taking up most of one wall.
Glancing down, I stare at the heavy arm lying across me.
It’s attached to Miles. I slowly turn my head to look at him. He’s lying on top of the covers now, curled around me. How did that happen?
