The Buy-In (Graham Brothers #1)(20)

I hesitate before putting it to my lips, telling myself I am not allowed to think about his lips on this same bottle. It almost works.

“As I was saying, I came here looking for you,” Pat says. “You weren’t here, but I had a lovely visit with your mama. She told me you’d been gone a long time. She gave me a piece of pie and sent me on my way.”

Pat came here. For me. It’s what I always wanted, what I secretly hoped for. Seeing him in the diner today was a shock, but at the same time, I played through the scenario so many times in my mind that it was familiar. Like I had expected Pat to show up here someday. Which, I guess he did. Twice now.

I close my eyes. It must have been just before I had to put Mama in a home, one I can only afford because Lynn Louise, the woman who owns it, gives us a hefty discount. Jo and I were probably at the store or at the library for story time, maybe at a park. I bet Mama had no recollection of Jo even existing, or of me living here. Maybe that day, she was thinking I was in college still. I’ll never know.

“Did she … pass?” Pat asks, his brown eyes slowly moving up to meet mine.

I give him a tight smile. “No. She has early onset dementia. I had to put her in a facility, Sheet Cake Acres. It was getting dangerous to have her here. I couldn’t leave her by herself.”

Pat reaches out and squeezes my knee. When I don’t tell him to stop—even though I should—his fingers trace a path down to the edge of my boot and back up. For a big brute of a man, he’s painfully gentle. His touch sends all kinds of electric sensations up my body in ways that make me feel ashamed, given our current conversation. Nothing like getting all hot and bothered when discussing your mama’s health issues.

Plus, I know better. I let this man hurt me once before. I won’t trade my good sense for the man’s touch. I pull my legs toward me and out of reach. A group of crows—a murder, in technical terms—flies overhead and I count them again as they disappear. A lone crow stays behind to watch the drama unfold from the branches of the dead oak tree. I really need to have that tree removed when I can afford it. I’ll add it to the ever-growing list.

“I’m so sorry,” Pat says.

His eyes flick to the side of the house, where Tank disappeared with Jo a few minutes ago, then back to me. The compassion in them makes me want to cry. Though we didn’t talk much about our families (again, see the rules), I know he lost his mama young. I could tell the few times he mentioned her how much he loved her.

“Is that when you had to start caring for Jo?” he asks.

Oh, boy. Best pull all the lies out of the darkness and lay them all out in the sun to be examined.

I take a shaky breath. “I’ve been taking care of Jo since she was a month old. My sister abandoned her the week you left.”

Pat’s face shifts as he realizes what the timing means. “But that time I called,” he says slowly. “You said you were in Europe.”

I nod slowly. “I did say that.”

The memory of his phone call is painfully etched inside my skull. I had not been in Europe. I’d been standing at the kitchen sink, washing bottles, the sour smell of formula mixing with the bright clean lemon of dish soap. When my phone rang, I was so exhausted, I didn’t even look at the caller ID.

I heard Pat’s voice, and I almost dropped my phone in the sink.

He’d been at a club or bar—I could hardly hear him over the thumping bass and sound of voices. I didn’t know why he was calling when he couldn’t have been bothered to so much as text me the night he ditched me without saying goodbye.

“I just wanted to catch up!” he said, practically shouting into the phone. “How are you, Lindybird?”

He wants to catch up? How am I?

In the window above the sink, I caught sight of myself. Lank hair, falling out of the same ponytail I’d worn for days. I had dark shadows under my eyes and hollows in my cheeks. The stained shirt I wore had spit-up in so many places it seemed silly to wash it and change into something clean. That had been the week the dryer broke.

It’s still broken. And so am I.

Before I could find words, I heard another woman saying Pat’s name, asking him to buy her another drink. Her voice was clear enough for me to know she was right there, probably pressed against him, her lips near his ear and—

I snapped. Lie after lie poured from my mouth about cities I’d seen, places I’d stayed, how wonderful it was being free and unattached. Tears poured down my face to match the lies streaming out. Lying was a way to shove Pat out of my life and slam the door behind him. I couldn’t have him calling me up when he wanted, breaking my heart all over again.

And then I heard Jo stirring through the baby monitor on the counter. I told Pat I had to go and hung up without waiting for a response. I went up to feed Jo, diving back into what had become my routine, hoping to forget about the man I’d loved.

Now, as understanding washes over Pat, I can see him fighting to contain his hurt and anger. I expect an explosion, but he holds it all behind the tightness of his jaw, the pinch of his forehead.

Pat has changed, or maybe he’s simply matured. Restraint was never his strong suit. What he felt bubbled out of him like an underground spring, unrestrained and uncontained.

“Did you ever go to Europe?” he asks.

“Raising a kid and taking care of Mama changed all my plans.” It changed me. Sometimes I think for the better, but it’s really hard to say.