“What do you mean?”
Avoiding his probing gaze, I confessed, “My mom is a crazy workaholic that thinks everyone in the world should work at least as hard as her. And my dad is… the opposite.” I didn’t want to bring up my dad’s lack of job yet. Whenever I told people that my dad was out of work, they immediately started placing all of their judgments on him. “He’s laid back,” I finally said.
“What do they do?”
Apparently, I wasn’t going to be able to skirt around the conversation after all. “My mom runs an elementary school lunchroom. She’s in charge of the kitchen. And my dad is currently unemployed. He was recently let go.”
Ezra made a face. “Oh that’s hard. I’m sorry. What’s his field?”
“Uh, sales, mostly.”
“What does he sell?”
“Everything.”
He laughed, thinking I’d made a joke. “What?”
“He sells everything. Or he’s sold everything. At least once. This has been somewhat of a theme my whole life. He sells something. He gets fired. He tries to sell something else. Eventually he gets fired. He’s… I don’t know how to explain him. He just, he’s not a very good worker.”
“Your parents are still married?”
I exhaled a long sigh. “Yeah. They hate each other, but they’re still married.”
Nodding in empathy, he said. “At least they’re trying.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” I told him. “It’s hard to tell with them.”
Ezra let out a slow breath. “You know, when my mom was dying, I didn’t know who my dad was. My mom never told me. So the whole time she was sick I believed very strongly that if my dad had been around, she would have been able to survive. I just knew that if he’d been there to take care of her instead of me, she would have been fine. Which is a heavy burden to carry as a kid. But then I met him, and I realized I’d been wrong. He wasn’t the kind of father that would have shouldered burdens and made things better. He was a taker. He wasn’t just sick physically, there was something wrong with him on the inside. But there was nothing I could do about it. By that point, he was going to die no matter what. I either had to accept him as he was and be thankful I had finally gotten to meet him and know him or I was going to have to live with never getting to know my dad. I made the right choice. Our parents aren’t perfect people. They’re as human and flawed as we are. Which means they’re as likely to mess us up as they are to not.”
I felt myself smile at his truth. “Wise advice.”
He lifted one shoulder. “You still turned out fine, Molly Maverick. I’ve been very impressed with everything you’ve done for the websites. I think your social media strategy is really going to make a difference. I already have some people on it. And the cooking classes were a genius idea. Wyatt is really excited about that.”
That lifted my spirits. “Yay!”
His lips kicked up in a teasing smile. “If you’re ever ready to leave STS just give me a call. I’ll have a job waiting for you.”
“Oh, really? How’s your health care?”
His grin widened. “Excellent.”
The door buzzed. The food was here. Ezra paid for it, even though I offered more than once since I’d been the one to ruin dinner, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
We spent the rest of the night laughing over Kung Pao chicken and Mongolian beef, fighting over the last crab Rangoon, and talking about every other single thing.
He made me think and listen, and I was surprised with how open he was. We’d ended up on the couch flirting and teasing and becoming something more than friends… something more than a casual kiss.
Not that we didn’t kiss.
Because we did.
When we’d gotten tangled in each other’s limbs and our words had run out, he’d kissed me on my couch like he’d been looking forward to it all night… all week. And then he’d kept kissing me. He’d kissed me long and thoroughly until I’d been greedy for more of him, more of his touch.
Until he’d somehow made tonight the best first date I’d ever had. Even though I’d started the night by destroying supper.
He’d finally pulled away sometime after midnight when it was impossible to keep our bodies and hands and minds from trying to push us past kissing.
I’d walked him to the door where he’d kissed me again and promised another night like this.
“Come see me at Bianca this week,” he’d demanded. “Thursday night. Give me something to look forward to.”
At this point I’d been drunk on him and his sinful mouth and the best conversation so I’d nodded. “Okay. Thursday.”
“Goodnight, Molly.”
“Goodnight, Ezra.”
Then he’d walked away leaving me bursting with hope and possibility. My poor cynical heart grew two sizes in anticipation of the next time I would see a man that only hours ago I’d tried to scare off.
I’d texted Vera even though it was late. It didn’t work. He wasn’t scared off.
She’d texted back almost immediately—Duh.
That’s when I realized she’d tricked me. I hated her.
And loved her.
And couldn’t wait to thank her in person.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was after nine by the time I parked at Bianca Wednesday night. It had been two weeks since the spaghetti mishap. Two weeks of new-relationship bliss and constant smiles and getting to know the most amazing man I had ever met.
Ezra had asked me to stop by to work on the mural. He’d hired a photographer to take new website pictures, but the mural needed to be finished first.
Nervous energy buzzed through me. I hadn’t seen him since last Sunday when I’d spent the day at Bianca painting. And we hadn’t been on a second date since we had Chinese food at my apartment.
We did email. We always emailed. Sometimes they were work related, sometimes I found myself grinning like a fool at the computer screen and trying not to audibly sigh. But it wasn’t just emails anymore either. We’d added talking on the phone and texting to our constant stream of conversation.
Ezra was… amazing. And thoughtful. And funny—which was the most surprising thing of all. He had become the thing I looked forward to all day long, the reason I pounced on my phone every time it made a dinging noise, the reason I constantly refreshed my email.
He’d single-handedly softened my cynical defenses and turned me into one of those obnoxious girls that believed in relationships.
It was wonderful.
And terrifying.