Page 38 of Grinch Girl

Why the grimace? “How many?”

He blew out a long breath. “Seven.”

“You’re joking.” My jaw was practically on the bar. “Seriously?”

“Dead serious.” Nate sighed. “I’m one of eight. Fifth of eight, actually, in birth order.”

Whoa. Even with just Greta, Bella, and me full-time, our mothers in and out, the house was still lively. I couldn’t imagine adding so many more people to the mix. “What was that like?” I asked, genuinely enthralled.

“Chaotic,” Nate confirmed. “Our house was always full and loud. When I was really young, there was always a baby crying or a toddler spilling something. When I got older, the door was always opening and slamming as we went to school or sports practices or out with the neighbor kids.”

His voice was a little careful, a little too neutral. “Was it chaotic in a good way or a bad way?” I pressed.

The tip of his right ear went pink again. “There were good things about it,” he allowed. “There was always someone around. It was never lonely.”

“But…” I led.

He took a gulp of his drink, not flinching this time. Maybe the brandy was growing on him. “But it was also…unruly,” he said, not smiling for once. “My parents weren’t exactly interested in being parents—the kind who enforced rules or established bedtimes or even made sure there was food for everyone.” He sighed. “They didn’t mind having all these children about, as long as they didn’t actually have to manage them.”

I could feel the line forming between my brows. Greta had been loving and kind, but she’d also been ultra-conscientious and strict as hell. Bella and I had never gone to school without a packed lunch or signed permission slips. In high school, we’dhad the earliest curfews of anyone we knew. Maybe we hadn’t loved it at the time, but the structure had been important. We never doubted that someone really cared what was going on with us.

I bit my lip and followed up on the most concerning tidbit he’d leaked. “Sometimes there wasn’t enough food for everyone?”

He shook his head quickly. “Oh, I didn’t mean we were on the verge of poverty or anything like that. After I turned ten, there were just a lot of times when my mom would throw up her hands at the older children and say, ‘Figure out something for your own dinner, rascals,’ and shoo us out of the house.”

I made sure my expression stayed calm, although my eyes wanted to widen. Fending for one’s own dinner at ten years old? Yikes. I think he sensed my concern anyway because he gave me a practiced grin. Not his real one; his eyes didn’t crinkle and his teeth didn’t flash. “No worries. It made me crafty, that’s all.” Now, he winked at me. “It’s probably why I’m so interested in hatching schemes.”

I didn’t smile back at him. I didn’t want to make light of these minor insights into his personality. In fact, I wanted to go deeper. The tiny pieces I knew about Nate knitted together in my mind. The little boy who’d needed to fend for himself, the adult who cared deeply about his work.

“Do you think that’s why you run your own business?” I found myself asking. “You didn’t have a lot of control when you were little so you like to have a lot of it now?”

Nate stilled on the barstool next to me. After a long pause, he answered. “Probably. I worked for a tech marketing company for several years to learn, but I was always anxious when I had a manager or teammate who seemed lazy. Iloveworking for myself. Being able to make all the decisions, right or wrong. I can work as hard as I want. I control the outcome.”

He huffed a laugh and looked at me out of the side of his eye. “I’d never really thought of my tendencies as having directly stemmed from my unruly childhood before though. Well done, J-Bird.”

I decided to lighten the mood. “Well, as you said, I am a part-time bartender, and I can tell you that life revelations often accompany the Wisconsin Old-Fashioned.”

He snort-laughed at that, his shoulders relaxing.

I was still a little hung up on the eight kids thing, though. “Did having so many siblings make you want a really big family of your own?” I asked. I often wondered how my unusual family situation growing up might shape choices I would make in the future, but I’d never talked about it with anyone. At least not since Bella and I had stopped speaking.

“No,” he said—quickly and definitively.

He gave me his quick grin, the real one. “When there’s eight kids, there’s not enough time or attention for any one of them. It’s hard to be special when you’re always one of a crowd. It’s hard to feel seen.”

“Is that the reason you left your town?” It was hard for me to imagine Nate not being seen. But maybe that was just because he stood out so much here. Or maybe he would stand out to me anywhere.

Ugh, where did that semi-sappy thought come from?Just the lust. Just the physical chemistry.Hormones were no joke.

“It’s one reason, anyway,” he said, finishing his drink. “Many of my siblings left, but no one else went quite as far.”

“Did leaving work?” I wondered. “Do you feel more seen?”

He stared at me again, the corners of his mouth turning up thoughtfully and his brow crinkling, like no one had ever asked him this question before. “I certainly see myself more,” he said slowly. “It took a while, too. To function as an individual and not part of the massive Wright family unit. To not constantlyconsider nine other people into every decision I made. But I got there.”

Hmmm. That wasn’t exactly an answer to the question I’d asked, but it was a more interesting thing to say. Something I already knew I would think about later. How did I see myself? Would I look different to myself if I were somewhere else?

“What is your life in Chicago like?” I asked eagerly. It was an overly broad question, but I wanted to hear everything: his typical work schedule, where his apartment was located, if he was more of a sports events guy or concert guy. Was he an experimental foodie, or did he order the same chicken pad thai from the corner takeout place every other night? Did he like seeing movies in theaters? Did he ever buy tickets to plays or musicals? Or did he mostly hang out in bars? Did he have a big group of casual friends or just one or two close ones? What did he do for exercise? There were some very nice muscles along his abdomen that didn’t come from being a couch potato.

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