Page 29 of Hearts on the Table
“Your mother?”
I sank into the chair he pulled away from the table, accepting the beer he offered. I held it steady while he popped the top off. Our fingers overlapped on the bottleneck. Warm.
“She’s a gardener. Started with Conner’s, moved to mine. Now she knows everyone in the units and does all the beds.”
“Conner lives here?” I grasped onto the information like a lifeline. Anything to keep pulling my attention away from the fact that Nate and Katie had just dropped an A-bomb on my life and I wasn’t sure what to do about it except cry.Future Lainey problem, I reminded myself.
Sam tipped his bottle to a unit across the yard. I spotted a child’s soccer goal resting against their gate. “I didn’t know Conner had a kid!” I called after him as he disappeared into his kitchen again.
“One and a half. His wife is due in a few weeks.” A container of guacamole and a bowl of mixed nuts joined the chips on the table. He was taking the white knight thing pretty seriously.
“I guess I don’t know much about them. Your brothers, I mean. Or, your family.”You, I thought. “It feels unfair. You know about my parents. And now about my tragic backstory.”
“What do you want to know?”
The glass bottle made a satisfyingthudas it landed on the teak table. I tented my fingers in front of my face. This was the distraction I needed. “Everything.”
Chapter 12
Lainey
It turns out his brothers had always been the sort of lovable goofballs they were now. Sam wasn’t shy about rolling out some of their more embarrassing stories, like the time a snake bit Will on the butt cheek during a camping trip. Or how Conner had drunkenly proposed to his now-wife, blacked out, and then forgotten about it until he saw the ring on her finger the next morning.
He looked kind of indulgent whenever he talked about his mom, which made me melt a bit. Over the course of our conversation, he thumbed open the top two buttons of his shirt, and I had to roll the beer between my palms to keep cool.
“I can’t imagine it. Three kids on a landscaper’s salary. And living in the city, too.”
Sam smiled softly. “She’s amazing. She had to travel to the suburbs a lot. When we got a little older, I took care of Will and Connor. She made it work. None of us are in jail, at least.”
“You’re all incredible.”
The sides of his mouth perked up as he surveyed the courtyard. “You think?”
“Absolutely! You’re a heart surgeon, for God’s sake. Look where you live. And Will and Connor own the gym and the physical therapy business. She won the jackpot with you guys. Three for three.”
His attention shifted from the yard. Every time I thought I was getting used to that heavy, focused consideration, I realizedhow wrong I was. I could practically hear it between us, the question on his face. Did I think they were allequallyincredible? Did one brother stick out a little more than the others? The lift of his lips told me he’d already guessed the answer. I gripped the bottle tighter.
“Tammy!!!” A child’s scream cut through the moment. I turned to see a toddler running full-tilt through the grass. He fell twice, a floppy pile of flailing limbs, before picking himself back up and resuming his sprint to Sam’s garden gate. Sam was already there, opening it to scoop the boy into his arms.
“Hey, bugle-boy.” He gave the curly-haired boy a big, smacking kiss on his cheek. Something in my heart wobbled, which could not have been correct, or medically accurate.
“Eli! I told you to wait!” A woman trudged across the grass, chest heaving. She cupped an arm around her belly.
Pregnant.
I sipped my beer.
“I’ve got him, Jas,” Sam assured. She huffed, hands planted on her hips.
“Doesn’t matter. I told him towait.” She shook her head at her son, braids swinging together. He grinned and clung to Sam’s neck.
“You should sit,” Sam muttered as she followed her son inside the gate.
“YOU should sit. I’ve been sitting all day and I can’t sit at home because it’s a wreck in there and we’re out of the lime seltz—Oh. Hi.”
Up close and personal, this woman was absolutely knock-out gorgeous. Even swollen and waddling up the porch stairs (where she’d frozen as soon as she saw me), she was a snack.
I wiggled my fingers at her, pretending I hadn’t just surreptitiously swiped under my eyes just in case there was any leftover mascara streakage. "Hi.”
