“Really?”
He nodded. “I still think some cashier’s going to look at me and say ‘Sorry, it’s been declined’.”
“Eh, I think anyone who’s had it happen is bound to have that little moment of fear, even when they know damn well they’ve got the money.”
“Yeah, probably. I don’t know. I guess in a way, worrying about money is part of that normal life I had before I went to Chicago. So getting that normal life back means getting all of it back.”
“I think that’s a good thing.” She studied him for a moment, and smiled. “I’m not surprised that getting rich didn’t change you, just really glad it didn’t.”
“The money didn’t.” Shame knotted beneath his ribs. He looked into his coffee cup. “But I don’t think you’d have liked me while I was still working.”
“Why not?”
“Because I had a one-track mind. It’s a cutthroat business, so I was as cutthroat as my business partners. Maybe even worse.” He met her eyes again. “You don’t get to the top without being an asshole sometimes.”
She studied him for a long moment. Long enough that he couldn’t help squirming a bit.
“What?”
She shrugged. “Nothing. It’s just hard to imagine you like that.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She smiled but didn’t say anything.
He sipped his coffee and kept his gaze down. On one hand, he wanted to suggest that maybe it was a good thing they’d taken this long to reconnect. After all, she wouldn’t have put up with the man he’d been during that time. On the other, every year in that world was a year without her, and it was hard to put a silver lining around that.
Dara drained her cup. “Oh, did I tell you I cleared out a room upstairs for the baby?”
“No, you didn’t.” He smiled, thankful for the change of subject. “Do I need to wag my finger at you for overdoing it?”
“Go ahead. I’ll wag the middle one right back at you.”
Matt laughed. “Fair enough.”
“You want to see it?” She gestured over her shoulder at the stairs. “It’s not much right now, but—”
“Sure, I’d love to.”
They left their coffee cups on the table and headed upstairs. He hadn’t been up this way in the daylight, and holy shit. Someone who was either colorblind or possessed by demons had covered nearly every vertical surface in this house with wallpaper, and it only got worse on the second floor. The stairs and hallway were lined with the weirdest pattern he’d ever seen on a wall. Something involving razor-thin red and blue lines bending and twisting up and down the walls like something out of Tron or a bad ECG. He couldn’t even look straight at it because it fucked with his migraine-prone eyes.
At the end of the hall, across from her bedroom, Dara pushed open the door. In here, the décor was a little tamer, thank God. The faint brownish color reminded him of what a freshly painted white fence looked like after a horse rubbed up against it. The carpet looked like the same horse had taken a good roll.
Dara folded her arms loosely beneath her breasts and wrinkled her nose. “Ugly as hell, isn’t it?”
“You don’t say.” Still, there was something about this room that made his heart race. It might’ve been just a bare room, but it was the room where his kid would be sleeping. How surreal. Soon, there’d be baby-sized furniture in here, and in a few months…the baby. Their baby. The one in that fuzzy ultrasound picture that neither of them could quite interpret—the image that had somehow hammered home the reality that this was happening. Standing here in this room with that picture in his wallet…
Shit. When they actually started setting up a crib and whatever else she’d need, he was probably going to have to go back on his blood pressure medication.
“Matt?”
He shook himself and turned to her. “Hmm?”
She tilted her head. “You spaced out for a second there.”
He cleared his throat. “Trying to picture it all, I guess. Are you, um, going to change the…” He gestured at the walls.
“Not when I’m only here for a few months.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “We’ll just keep the lights dim so he never sees it.”
Matt laughed. “He’d never forgive us.”
“Could you blame him?”
“Not even a little. So, what all do you need?” He paused. “Do we need?”
A smile played at her lips. Shrugging, she surveyed the ugly, empty room. “Well, I’ve already got the crib picked out, and some other furniture. I’ll go buy all of that this week.”