“I’m sorry, baby. He’s a fool. Even if he doesn’t approve, it’s still your choice. You’re all grown up.” He reached out and ran his fingers through her hair over her ear. “He should know better than to put you down like that. Doesn’t he know it will only build a barrier between you?”

“He should know by now. We had a big blowout at Christmas. What is it about Christmas? Can’t blame it on booze. We’re pretty conservative with liquor, even on holidays. But he started in on how I was wasting my life on scumbags when if I really wanted to make a difference in the world there were better ways. We argued. I mean, we fought. I lashed out at him for his regular if not constant criticism of me and what I do. I was so angry. He was just as angry. It was awful. We weren’t content to just argue over the crime of the moment—we both reached way back in time, remembering every disappointment. My sister-in-law took my nieces into another room!”

“Honey...”

“I told him I was through listening to his negative, critical remarks, that I was done and he shouldn’t bother to get in touch with me unless he could apologize and change. And then I left Boston in a huff, furious. We haven’t spoken since. When I saw his name on the caller ID I wondered if our two months of not speaking at all had finally...”

“I guess it caught up with you,” he said.

“I just got home a couple of hours ago. I went to the phone store—I changed my number. I have a long contact list to go through, a lot of colleagues and supervisors to email. Tomorrow is soon enough. But it was the last straw, Eric. When he suggested my work had made me delusional...”

He just kept running that hair over her left ear. She looked into her lap, looked at the phone. “Getting a new number is pretty dramatic,” he said.

“I probably should have done this five years ago. We had a big argument about my work as an agent not long after my mother died. He thought that since she died and she was my biggest supporter, it was time for me to quit the FBI and find something he referred to as ‘more respectable’ to do for a living. What is it with him? He doesn’t have to be proud of me but how can he be so hard on me? I can’t really be that inadequate. I get the job done. I don’t get any complaints from the FBI.”

“Did he ever suggest he could take you? Ask you to break free of his hold? Because that could have been interesting....”

A little puff of laughter escaped her. “He’s seventy. A very tough, strong seventy, but I wouldn’t throw him. Things are bad enough between us.”

Eric got up and went behind her. “Scoot,” he said, pushing her forward a little bit. “Let me back here.” He stepped over the back of the chaise so that he was behind her, his long legs on either side of the chaise. He pulled her back against him. Once she was settled there, he put his hands in her hair, his fingertips gently massaging her scalp.

“Ohhhh... Whatever that is you’re doing, it’s okay to keep doing it....”

“When I get worried about my parents or frustrated with them, it gives me a headache. And I’m not a headache kind of guy.”

“Do they get you upset regularly?”

“Hmm. Very regularly. My mom is a very negative person anyway and she really has an excuse in me.”

“So what do you do?” she asked.

“I apologize for getting in so much trouble as a kid, for embarrassing the whole family, promise I’m doing better now, all the same stuff. Over and over. And I try to be patient.”

“And who rubs your head?” she asked.

He laughed softly. “I take aspirin.”

“What do you think I should do?” she asked.

“Well, my first reaction would be to remember your dad might be too old to change his habits. Maybe he’s just one of those negative people.”

“I just couldn’t ever impress him. Period. He’s always been that kind of guy who knows it all, though. He knows what’s best for everyone, what’s right for the whole world. He’s arrogant. Omnipotent.”

“How about your brother?”

“It doesn’t seem like he picks at Pax as much, but then Pax studied medicine, which was what Senior had in mind for both of us. And also, Pax just ignores him. He never argues with him, just lets him rant on. It’s true, if he doesn’t get an argument, he runs out of steam pretty quickly.”

“Have you thought about doing that? Just let him have his say, however unfair or unkind it is, and put up with it? Because he’s your father and you’re stuck with him?”

She leaned back against him. “My mother used to say I was as stubborn as he is. And that I have a real problem with needing to be right. I don’t want to be like him, needing to be right all the time. It’s awful. You’re not like that.”

He leaned forward and kissed her neck. “Laine, you have to remember, I’m the cause of my parents’ unhappiness. I didn’t just shoplift a candy bar and take it back to the store. I was convicted of armed robbery.”

She turned to look over her shoulder at him. “But you didn’t have a weapon and you didn’t rob anyone!”

“I was there. That was enough.”

“You know you got screwed, right?”

“Whatever you say....”

“I looked at the record and the transcripts. You had an inadequate defense and a hanging judge....”

“You looked,” he said with a shallow laugh. “How does that not surprise me.”

“Occupational hazard....”

“It’s okay. I have no secrets.”

“Not that I could find....”

“I’m sure you don’t care, but I didn’t run a background check on you.”

She chuckled. “I’d love to see you try.” She glanced over her shoulder. “What should I do about my dad?”

“I don’t know, Laine. It must hurt so much. Instinct says, he’s your dad. Do your best to get along, you won’t have him forever. And you can fix your own boundaries.”

“Which I have. I moved to the other coast and changed my number.”

“Pretty serious boundaries,” he said. “That explains why my call to you didn’t go through a couple of hours ago.”

“Sorry. I was caught up in what I’d done. I can usually make very dramatic moves without getting emotional, but this time... Well, I’ve been threatening to just disengage from Senior since our relationship is at least fifty percent misery. But I kept hoping....”

“Understandable,” Eric went on. “If I were your best friend and you were dating a guy who treated you like he owned you, I’d tell you to break away. Fast. Because you just don’t treat a person you love like that. It’s not good. It won’t work. For either of you.”

“I think you are my best friend,” she said. “And I don’t think my father has ever loved me. If he loved me, wouldn’t he be nicer to me?”

“Pax is your best friend,” he reminded her.

“He’s my twin. It’s a whole different thing. But you? You’re a friend. And you’re wonderful with scalp massage.”

He chuckled. “As for your dad, who knows what makes him tick. If you’ve told him how he makes you feel and nothing changes, maybe he just doesn’t get it.”

“Will you move in with me?” she asked.

He stopped massaging.

“I scared you, didn’t I?”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “Turn around for me, Laine.” She moved around so she was facing him and crossed her legs. “You’ve never lived with anyone, have you?”

She shook her head. “Have you lived with a lot of people?”

“Just Cara. Look, I know what I told you about that, that it had run its course and we knew it. But I didn’t go into it thinking it had an expiration date on it. I thought our relationship would get stronger. I knew there would be adjustments to sharing space, but I thought once we figured it out, it would be easy. It wasn’t easy. And it didn’t get stronger.”

“You don’t think we’d get stronger?”

“For what’s left of your leave from the FBI? Before you go back to the East Coast and get back to doing work you can’t talk about?”

“Oh. You want to see some long-term potential before you even share a closet? Even though we sleep together every night and you have a key and your own toothbrush?”

“I don’t know if this will make any sense, Laine, but here goes.... If you told me right now that you’re done here, that you’re leaving next week to go back to that life you left behind, that would really bite. I’m not done with you, not by a long shot. It would be hard, but it wouldn’t be a shock. I could still grab my toothbrush, the spare jeans, extra jacket, garage uniform, leave my key on the kitchen counter and go back to my place. Not much of a place, but I can live with it. But the idea of living with you for a year, getting deeper and deeper into you and then suddenly—bam—there’s nothing. That just feels bigger than what I’m up to. I can’t explain it any better.”

“You’re scared,” she said.

He gave a nod. “Scared.”

“Were you scared with Cara?”

He shook his head. “Not at all. Not scared, not worried, not much in love. Comfortable and relaxed with her, sure. We worked well together. But I never once thought, if she leaves me I’ll crash.”

That actually made her smile. “You’re in love with me.”

“Is that what it is? I wouldn’t know. All I know is I haven’t been in this place before. It’s brand-new. It’s terrifying. Why couldn’t I feel this way about someone simpler? Easier to understand? Someone I have something in common with?”

“I guess I’m a big risk. I like that. I’d like to take the chance. You’ll do what you think is best, but I’d love to live with you. I’ve never done it before, but I think I could do it with you. Or you can keep that hotel room. But gee, I hope you don’t stop spending the night....”

“I probably couldn’t if I tried.”

“I’m so happy about that!”

“So here’s the deal. You know that judge you called the hanging judge? He was the best judge there ever was. I’ll never forget what he said when he sentenced me. He said, ‘Son, you probably feel completely ruined and lost, but you’re really the luckiest man I know. You’re stripped down to nothing. You’ve got nothing but another chance. It’s going to go one of two ways. You’re either going to sink even lower, find ways to make your life harder and meaner. Or you’re going to use this time to turn it around, build the kind of life you can be proud of. It’s all on you. Let’s see what you’ve got.’” He ran a knuckle along her cheek. “I remember the day he sentenced me—May 19. I send him a thank-you note every year on that day.”

She tilted her head, wondering what this had to do with her. With them.

“I need you,” he said. “The way I see it, we have months ahead to find out if what we have is really special or if it’s just temporary. Nobody ever won a race by standing at the starting line. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

She smiled at him. “Let’s see.”

Nine

Eric didn’t pack all his things and move in with Laine. He kept his motel room but slowly, so slowly, transferred personal items to her house. His laundered work clothes, hanging so politely in the dry cleaning bags, went directly to Laine’s closet rather than back to the motel and he carried a small duffel back and forth, dropping off clothes. He caught her moving some of his things around between drawers and refolding them. She held up an article of clothing—plaid flannel pants. “What are these?” she asked.