“I know that feeling.”
Erica nodded, lips set in a tight line. “Yeah.”
“Think he’ll make a good dad?” Meg indicated Curt, who was doubled over laughing near the stage edge as Seth danced badly with a giggling Toby on his shoulders.
Erica’s features softened and her lush lips spread into a grin. “Hope so. I can say that behind that sarcastic facade, he’s a protective brother. Fabulous godfather. Attentive son. Doting uncle. I think he’ll have a short learning curve.”
“Some people are meant to be parents.” Meg’s gaze wasn’t on the bespectacled blond helping Toby off his friend’s shoulders. It was on the redhead who fit so seamlessly into her life, he seemed imaginary.
Erica cleared her throat. “You know, Sharon once told me that if I didn’t put myself out there, it’d be my fault if Curt walked away. He’s the kind of man that needed a woman who’d work him the right way, and I didn’t know if that was me. I resisted it for a while, and he was being stubborn, too, because he didn’t chase women. But, the thing is, we’re like two magnets and if you put us together, we want to stay that way. Even when our brains resisted, our hearts didn’t.”
Meg blew out a breath and raked a hand through her loose hair. “If this goes badly, I suspect everyone will be on his side, not mine.”
“Then don’t let it go badly, huh? Hey.” Erica reached into her basket and plucked out a little plastic baggie of lemon pound cake. She handed it to Meg. “You keep my secret, I’ll keep yours. That way we’ll both have someone understand.”
Meg pulled back the edges of the bag and inhaled the lemon icing’s aroma, nodding. “Yeah. What a secret.”
“Don’t feel bad for wanting a good guy. I know they’re not in style right now.” Erica giggled and stretched her long legs out in front of her.
“I’m afraid I’ll break him.”
“Teach him to set limits.”
“Just like that, huh?”
Erica nodded and unscrewed her water cap once more. “I didn’t say it was going to be easy. Nothing worth having is really easy.”
Chapter 11
Spending the night at Meg’s with the Scotts under the same roof added an entirely different layer of confusion to the mix for Seth. Naturally, he slept in Meg’s room, but then there was the feeling of unease when he didn’t know what her expectations were. He’d successfully dodged the scenario several nights out of the week, begging off by saying he had to be at work very early the next morning and thus drove home to Fayetteville.
He’d tried to bow out of joining them on the second Sunday of their stay—their last full day—but Toby begged him not to go. He did have to work in the morning, but he couldn’t think of a single compelling reason why he couldn’t start his Monday in Raleigh and get up an hour earlier.
Over the past week, he’d been trying not to let himself grow attached to the Scotts and the way they drew him into the family as if it were such a natural thing. He felt, for the first time in twenty years, as if he belonged to someone. A family, beyond the ragtag group of grad students he’d collected and made his kin while at the university. But all that was fake, so he tried doing what he’d seen Curt do so many times in the past: shutting down. Putting up that wall, and letting nothing permeate it. If he didn’t put himself out there, he wouldn’t get hurt.
And then Toby would hand him some toy that needed fixing, or Mr. Scott would lower his newspaper and ask Seth to explain some Russian political issue to him, and all that desperation, the wanting, came back to the surface. As much as he wanted Meg, he wanted Toby, too. And even all the rest of them, in smaller doses. This wasn’t his world, though. At any time, Meg could decide she was through—that the worst of it had all blown over, and that the time had come for them to part. To move on to the next thing.
Seth didn’t know if he had it in him to put himself out there again. He’d just as soon be alone, and had gotten used to solitude, anyway.
He sat on the bench at the end of Meg’s bed and heeled off his shoes.
She entered the room and shut the door behind her. “My folks are all right, I guess,” she said with a sigh. “That said, I’m glad they’re going home tomorrow. It’s tough feeling like you’re on all the time and have to perform. I guess every adult kid feels that way around their parents.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he said softly.
She closed her eyes and nodded. “Right. I’m sorry.”
“Do you have a blanket in here? I could sleep on the floor.”