Page 22 of Like the Season
Chapter Seven
After Boyd took a shower he rejoined Ella in the living room, where she was going through the thumb drive of pictures he’d given her.
“All these people I don’t know,” she said. “But you and I look a lot like your mom.”
“Yeah, people always said that about me.” He draped an arm around her shoulders, something knotting inside his heart in a good way when she leaned against him.
“What about the cousins of yours?”
“On my mom’s side, yeah. Not super-close to them. Facebook friends, mostly. Haven’t seen any of them since leaving Minnesota. Not real sure about Dad’s family. I don’t think there are any still alive. I mean, like second or third removed, maybe, but I don’t know them.”
She looked around the apartment. “Mom and I moved here the second year we were out here because we couldn’t afford the two-bedroom apartment on our own after her friend flaked out. She gave me the bedroom and she slept on the couch.”
He suspected this was another reason she didn’t want to leave, because of her emotional attachment to the place. “Where did you live in North Dakota?”
“Fargo, mostly. A couple of places when I was little, but I don’t remember. We moved out here from Fargo.” She laughed. “That first winter was culture shock of the good kind. Everyone was complaining how cold it was, and I was practically running around in short sleeves and flip-flops. Mom couldn’t keep a coat on me.”
“Yeah, I feel ya. My first winter in Florida after Germany was the same way. I was wearing shorts and my roommate in the dorm thought I was nuts. I was like, dude, it’s sixty-one. This is T-shirt weather.”
“Do you love Florida?”
“I do. I don’t think I could live full-time where it’s cold now. I’ve been there, what, twenty years. It’s home. It’s a great place to raise a baby.”
A shuddering breath escaped her. “I’m so scared. I can’t believe I was so…stupidto sleep with the jerk. I was even on the pill. I don’t understand how this happened. I mean, I do, as a nurse, but…fuck.”
“Hey, happens to the best of us.”
“Wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d at least been a decent guy, but…” She closed the lid on her laptop and looked up at him. “Did you mean it when you said you’d go with me to talk to him?”
“Absolutely.” He smiled. “A chance to sadistically put the fear of god into the guy who knocked up my little girl? I’m in.”
She snorted, the laugh that followed a wonderful sound to his ears. “Oh. My.Gawd.” She shook her head. “I think it’s going to take me a while to get used to that.”
“Well, I mean it. I wasn’t able to be a dad to you, but Caleb and I are going to be kick-ass grandpas. You just wait.”
“Did you tell him yet?”
“I talked to him while you were in the shower.”
“How’d he react?”
“Eager. He wants us to be a family. I lucked out when I met him.”
“I thought you knew him from work?”
“Yeah, but…” He smiled. “Again, it’s kind of complicated how we got ‘together,’ if you get my drift. Not through the Suncoast Society, but…similar.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
She felt like eating breakfast, now that her initial nausea had passed. He drove, and she directed him to a small family-owned restaurant that sat in a run-down strip mall less than a mile from her apartment complex. But inside, while simple and older decor, it was immaculate and the aromas making their way from the kitchen set Boyd’s stomach growling.
They didn’t have to wait long for a booth. As they settled in with their menus, he took another look at Ella from across the table.
She’d pulled her hair back in a low ponytail at the nape of her neck, and she wasn’t wearing makeup.
“So how’d you find this place?”
