Page 64 of Ghost of a Chance
He flushed and shook his head.“Yeah, turns out I’m not great with knowing what size a quarter is.”
“What did you think?”
“Five inches.”
She started laughing.“I’m bad with numbers but not that bad.”
He grimaced.“Most of the time no one can see it but in summer, I get all kinds of comments.”
“I can see why,” she said.“But I think it’s sweet.Like you have something special with your dad.”
He grew quiet for a minute, then leaned against the back of the couch.“Do you have anything with yours?”
“No.Nothing.He left us when I was six.”
“What a dick move.You know that has nothing to do with you,” Jasper said.
“I don’t know, he’s never reached out and I never saw him again.At this point I’m good,” she said.And she was.Or at least she tried to be.Closure wasn’t always possible.
He pulled her into his arms, stroking her hair.“Sorry.”
“Not your fault,” she said.Because what else was she going to say?
That she was sorry too?It hurt that she didn’t have two parents that cared for and loved her the way other kids had when she’d been in school.But now that she was an adult, she had to grow up.“It really wasn’t a big deal, except for in fifth grade during the daddy-daughter dance.I really didn’t miss having him around.”
“Did you have to skip the dance?”
“No.My mom took me.Told the school they were being discriminatory.There were other parents, not just us that objected.Some same-sex parents also didn’t like daddy-daughter or mommy-son.So they changed it to parents and kids.Actually, it turned out really nice.”
Her mom could be too much and push too hard, but Kirsty wanted to be fearless the way she was.When her mom saw something that wasn’t right she spoke up.
“Sounds like it.We didn’t have anything like that at my school,” Jasper said.
“I’m not sure that they do it everywhere.We were living in the Midwest at the time in a suburb of Chicago,” she said, remembering that rented town house that had been so different from the big house they had in Florida when she was really little.It had snowed in October right before Halloween and she’d been entranced.Never having seen snow before, it was magical and she’d wished that they would stay there forever.
But they hadn’t.Her mom had to take different jobs to move up the corporate ladder and they moved once again back to the South, and then again to Texas.Her childhood had been a bunch of restarts.
Which was probably why she’d bought that duplex and given the other half to her mom.They both had a permanent home now.Her mom still traveled a lot for work but Kirsty had someplace of her own.And her mom was never far away.
Jasper was quiet, watching the fire and lost to his own thoughts.She appreciated it because once she started thinking about her past, thoughts of the future crept in.A future that was unsettled until she figured out her own possible abilities as a medium and why Paul lingered on.Otherwise this television spot, and potentially her career, were dead on arrival.
Also, now there was Jasper.
She’d told herself it was safe to sleep with him.They were only in each other’s lives for a short while.It felt like that longing to stay in the Midwest had when she first sat in the window and watched the snowfall.
Like a new start.Something different.
* * *
It was just too easy to talk to her about his dad.The stuff that he normally didn’t bring up.It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that most people didn’t know how to react when he said his dad died the night he was born.
But with Kirsty it didn’t feel odd.Maybe it was because she hadn’t known her dad either.
“Is there anything you’re not good at?”he asked after a few minutes.
“Lots of stuff.Sports especially.”
He doubted that.
