“But without you?” Mrs. Scott pressed.
He raised his shoulders and let them fall. “I was quite young the last time they left. Seemed best for me to have some constancy.”
“But then they didn’t return after your grandmother died?”
He shrugged again, not knowing what to tell them, except, “Not everyone is destined to be a parent. I truly believe that some people are meant to have children, but not necessarily raise them.”
“Do you do that all the time? Try to rationalize truly shitty situations in your life?” That came was from Meg, who had turned in her chair toward him, and propped her cheek against her left fist as she stared at him.
Did he do that? Had he turned into some sort of Pollyanna in all his years, or had he always been that way? Maybe it was one more thing he’d inherited from his grandmother beyond her dark skin. In life she’d been an incurable optimist, even when the forecast was dire. She’d always smiled, even if she had to cringe before she made it there.
He pulled his beer glass closer and stared at the foamy top. “Yes, I suppose I do,” he said finally. When he looked at Meg, she raised her eyebrows at him in lieu of response.
“What if they were to pop in today without warning?” Mrs. Scott asked. “Would you let them back in, just like that? No questions asked? No hard feelings?”
He looked to Meg, who remained quiet but had narrowed her dark eyes to slits. Her expression bore a warning he didn’t understand, but that he also had no desire to trespass upon. He hedged. “I don’t know. Talking is easy, acting is hard. I’d like to say I’d be wary, but I can’t say for sure.”
“Good thing you’re a big guy, or you would have gotten beat up a lot as a kid,” Mr. Scott said through a mouthful of pasta.
All Seth could do was grunt, because the man was probably right.
“I think I may be the opposite,” Meg said, still studying him.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m slow to forgive, and equally slow to realize I’ve been burned. I’m that idiot who’ll set her hand on a hot stove and not feel the pain until after a blister has formed. The one who’ll ignore things everyone else can see because certainly bad shit couldn’t happen to a girl like me. Right, Mom?” She cocked her head toward Mrs. Scott, who in turn pushed one eyebrow upward. “Silver spoon, right? Things are supposed to be easy for me? People are supposed to treat me right just because?”
“Because what?” Toby asked.
Meg opened her mouth to respond, but Seth stood and gathered up some of the soiled dishes, saying, “Because people are supposed to be decent,” before Meg could really speak her mind.
He didn’t have to be a psychic to predict that what would come out of her mouth was intended more for her parents’ ears than Toby’s. Stacking the dishes on one forearm, he grabbed Toby’s water glass and backed toward the balcony door.
“Hey, Toby, how ’bout you show me what goes into a chocolate milkshake?”
Toby streaked past him so fast, Seth nearly lost his balance, but Seth imagined any kid deprived of chocolate as much as Toby seemed to be would probably have a similar response to the offer.
Meg’s expression was inscrutable as Seth turned away from the table. Just when he’d started thinking he was boring through her diamond-hard layers, he’d reach something even harder to surpass. Maybe she’d never open up. Perhaps he’d never understand her. And probably that’s because she had never meant to be understood.
The marriage was a sham, after all. He’d do himself a favor if he could only remember that.
Chapter 10
Meg wasn’t blind, so she noticed the way women looked at Seth when they thought she wasn’t looking. Crammed on a blanket with her parents, Toby, and Seth in Raleigh’s Moore Square, she was supposed to be enjoying local bands and savoring cold North Carolina beer, but instead her radar had been thrown into some sort of hypersensitive overdrive with each turn of women’s heads.
Seth was oblivious, or perhaps distracted. Toby kept leaning onto the man’s back and handing Meg’s phone over Seth’s shoulder with the demand he work out the required physics to aim an angry bird toward the appropriate smug feral pig.
She had no way of knowing what those women were thinking, but if she’d been one of them—an outsider looking on—she’d probably think, Lucky bitch, and also, He must have been desperate. Just look at her. And then there was one special for her situation: No wonder Spike dumped her.
Her straight posture sagged a bit, and she moved into the shadow cast by Seth’s big body, pressing her left hip against his right one. That triggered a look down from him.