She looked up at him and rolled her eyes. “Sure. Like I would ever date a man I met in a strip club.”
“I’ve hung out in a strip club a time or two.”
“I’m not surprised. Strip clubs attract jocks and musicians like ants to a picnic.”
“I haven’t been in a few years,” he defended himself, although he wasn’t quite sure why he felt the need to. He ran his hand down the smooth skin of her back. “My father still loves the strippers.”
“Which explains his attraction to my mother.”
“Your mother was a stripper?” Again, no big surprise.
“Yep. She was a stripper and sometimes a cocktail waitress.”
“Sounds like she worked hard.”
“She did. She played hard too. I was alone a lot.”
“Where is your father?” She rubbed her foot on the inside of his calf and came dangerously close to kneeing him in the nuts.
“I haven’t seen him since I was little.”
He rolled her onto her back and looked down into her face. “You’ve never tried to find him?”
“Why? He didn’t want to know me. Why would I want to know him?”
Good point.
She pushed a piece of blonde hair from her face. “What about your mother?”
He fell onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. He didn’t like to talk about his mother. “What about her?”
“Where does she live?”
“She died about five years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
He looked across the pillow at her. “Don’t be.
She wasn’t.” He ran his gaze across her beautiful face. Her green eyes and long lashes. Her perfect nose and the bow of her full pink lips. “My father has always said that she was crazy, but that’s because he never tried to understand her.”
She turned on her side. “Did you?”
He shrugged. “She was very emotional. Laughing one minute, crying the
next. She never got over the divorce, and I don’t think she had a real interest in living after that.”
“When did your parents divorce?”
“I was ten.”
She looked into his face and her smile was sad when she said, “I think my mother was on her third divorce when I was ten. I used to ride my bike to dance classes at the Y so that I didn’t have to think about it.”
He pictured a little girl on a pink Schwinn, her blonde ponytail flying behind her. “I played hockey twelve months out of the year.”
“Well, all that hard work paid off.”
He’d had great coaches to fill the voids in his life. Good men and mentors. He wondered if she’d ever had anyone. He bet not. “So did your dance classes.”