Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
“You were pretty sleepy before I took you home,” I comment.
“That’s different. I was snuggled up with you.” She looks wistful for a second and then takes a drink, looks around ready to change the subject.
“Did you sleep okay?” she asks.
This would be a good time for me to lie, but I don’t want to.
“Not for more than an hour probably. You’d think I would’ve been exhausted, but I couldn’t get to sleep.”
“Did you doomscroll like me or what?”
“I sent some emails, looked through the preliminary contracts on a paving and concrete business I’m buying. Then I gave up and watched some crap on YouTube.”
“What’d you watch? Goodfellas? The Sopranos?” she teases me. I don’t crack a smile but it takes an effort to keep a straight face.
“Jackie Chan,” I say.
“Really? Kung fu movies?” she wrinkles her nose.
“The guy’s made something like 150 movies. They’re pretty good.”
“I had no idea you were this adorable. You’re so dorky about this, I can’t stand it.”
“Dorky?” I repeat, feigning offense.
“Does Rory know? About the Jackie Chan thing?”
“Not really. We typically have more important things to discuss.”
“How many times have you seen Kung Fu Panda?” She challenges.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lie, grinning.
“You were how old when the first one came out? I was eight or nine so you’d have been like, what, thirty?” she teases.
“If you were eight or nine, that made me…” I wince a little at the thought of being fifteen years older than her. “Twenty-three.”
“Wow,” she says. “I was being a smartass about your age but when you put it like that, it just really shows the contrast. I still had baby teeth and you were old enough to drink and have tattoos and shit.”
I drink the rest of my beer and try not to think about it too hard.
“So, when you got your driver’s license I was like one year old?” She ventures. I nod.
“I never heard the end of how they made Rory put a booster seat in his first car so he could pick me up from daycare,” she says.
“I remember he didn’t love that,” I say. “I tried to tell him it made him look like maybe he just had a baby mama and knocked up an older broad.”
She laughs, “God, he was so embarrassed. I remember that from when I was little. He said it was disgusting, that he had to think about Mom and Dad having sex when he was a teenager because they got pregnant with me.”
“Your parents weren’t that old,” I say.
“My mom was like thirty-five when I was born. God, I miss her. My dad was probably about your age.”
“Jesus, Katie. Could we keep my age and your dad out the same sentence?” I nearly spit out my cheese dip.
“No way. If I knew it was this much fun roasting you about your age I would have done it a long time ago,” she says visibly enjoying herself.
“You miss them a lot,” I say. She nods.
“Don’t you miss your parents?”
“I don’t remember my mom. She died in an accident when I was pretty little. And my dad worked a lot. I guess I miss Fiona. She was my nanny.”
“Did she pass away?”
“A few years before my dad, yeah,” I say. “She was great.”
Just like that, she reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “Growing up without a mom must’ve been awful. I’m so sorry.”
“It was fine. I don’t remember her or anything so it’s not like I miss her.” I say, uncomfortable.
“At least I have Rory. You don’t have any family left, do you?”
“I got some cousins. They work in the business. Marco runs the car dealership,” I say.
“That dealership, that was like the coolest thing to me when I was a kid that your family owned the biggest dealership in Southie. I thought you probably got to drive all the new cars.”
“Not really,” I say. “I washed some of them, filled the gas tanks just to help out around the place.”
“Did your dad have the Pearl or is that something you started?” she asks.
“My dad had the Oyster and the car dealership and a couple loan shark joints, pawn shops. I wanted to diversify the business holdings and open up a classier casino. Less video slots and more old school gaming tables—roulette, craps, blackjack, high roller poker tournaments. He was against it.”
“So that beautiful place was all your idea,” she says, “you did a great job. It’s a long way from pawn shops and loan sharks.”
Something stops me in my tracks. If I was gonna act stupid about something I would’ve nave guessed it would be Katie Donahue saying I did a good job with the casino. But here we are. Because it doesn’t hit me so much as I feel aglow like embers kindle to life in my chest or behind my eyes. I feel the warmth of it all the way down to my fingertips. She’s proud of me. And maybe I’ve waited all my life for someone who matters to be proud of me and say so. Or it could be that I’ve been so goddamn lonely all these years that this is what it feels like when there’s a crack in the ice.