“So the fact that a guy bought me a drink is probably a no too?”
His jaw drops wide open, but I start giggling before he can comment. “Fenton, I was kidding. About the drink anyway. I was in a bikini, a very little red one that Edie said you’d love . . .”
“I’d love. Me. That’s the part you seem to have missed.” Everything about the way he looks at me tells me he’s serious. But the tug at the corner of his mouth makes it feel playful and I run with that.
I shrug casually. “It’s a good thing I’m not sure if there were guys at the pool today or not, since I spent the whole time imagining what you would look like shirtless.”
A faint rumble drifts to my ears and the smirk that melts me trickles over his lips. “Good girl.” He composes himself before continuing. “You do look like you caught some sun. You’re golden.”
“I didn’t stay long,” I report. “The sun is so hot. And there were so many people.”
“You aren’t a fan of large crowds?”
“Not really. I’d prefer watching a movie at home over going to the theater any day.”
“And I bring you to Las Vegas.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “But for the record, I’m the same way. I always feel like I’m strange because I don’t like going out in public. But maybe I’m more normal than I thought . . . or you’re just weird too.”
The waiter comes by and checks on our table. Fenton has a quick conversation with the man and I wonder if they know each other. They have a much more natural rapport than anyone I’ve seen him with yet. I don’t have time to think about it much because before I know it, he’s gone.
Fenton takes a sip of his wine, watching me over the brim. He places it back on the table and relaxes back in his chair. “So what do you normally do when you date?”
“I don’t know. Dinner. A movie, if the guy is uncreative,” I confess. “I’d rather go to the beach with a picnic or to a play or ballet though, really.”
“I haven’t been to something like that in years.”
“I make sure I see The Nutcracker every December. There’s nothing like it. And if I can sneak another one in, I try to.”
He drops his napkin on the table, his eyes wistful. “My mother loved ballets and plays and operas. We would see something on Broadway every year for her birthday.”
“She sounds fantastic,” I whisper.
“She was.” He nods his head solemnly. “My father was a successful businessman. When they married, I think he expected her to stay home and just enjoy being taken care of. But not my mother,” he laughs. “She started her own endeavors, built her own empire in a way. But where my father’s was purely aimed at making coin, my mother’s was aimed to make a difference in the world. She was fearless.”
I watch him gaze across the room, deal with the memories he’s feeling. A small grin touches his lips before he looks at me again.
“So who are you more like? Your father or your mother?” I ask.
“I’m a mix, I think. Somewhere in the middle,” he shrugs. “I’m like my dad in that work comes first. It came before anything besides my mother, and I think she was an anomaly. If he hadn’t found that exact woman, I think he’d have been a bachelor his whole life.”
I nod, letting that sink in.
“But I’m like her, too. She had a hard time connecting to people on a personal level. She could do these big things and her heart was always in the right place, but she never had close friends or acquaintances. Just my father and I for the most part.”
“You don’t have friends?” I find that hard to believe. The pull to him is a force to be reckoned with.
“Not really. I just don’t connect well to most people. I grew up with a bunch of clowns with inheritances, but like you, my parents made me work. I helped them, had chores, didn’t get spoiled to the level of the kids I went to school with. My mother came from a poor background and she didn’t believe in making me ‘rotten,’ as she’d say,” he grins. “Why? You seem surprised.”
“I am. It’s just not what I was expecting you to say. That’s all.”
He shrugs again. “What about you? Are you like your parents?”
“Nope. Not at all. They’re both detailed and organized and I’m more of . . . a mess.”
He laughs at the look on my face. “I hardly would call you a mess.”
“You haven’t seen my house.”
“True,” he grins. “You live with Presley, right?”
“I do. We’ve lived together for a couple of years now. I think she’s the only person I could ever live with.”
“You’ve never lived with anyone else?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Besides my parents, of course. I haven’t trusted anyone else enough to live with them. What if they don’t pay the bills or steal from me or something?”