“Tell me about your parents,” Cora said as she picked through the pages, peeling back the clear layer protecting the photos and plucking out the ones they needed to photocopy.
“Dad was an English teacher and Mum taught Home Economics. They met at work, got married, and had a gazillion babies. The end,” he said with a laugh. He pulled one album from the stack. Cora’s list was in the middle of them, and he flipped the page, looking over her neatly written notes so he knew which photos to look for. “My family is pretty boring.”
“Boring?” Cora blanched. “Are you kidding me? I would have killed to have a family like yours growing up.”
“It’s not all sunshine and roses,” he said. “We’ve had our ups and downs.”
“Ups and downs are one thing.” She flipped over another page and smiled at a picture of Trent’s parents holding a newborn baby, swaddled in a blue blanket. That must be baby number one: Adam. “Nationally televised scandals are another.”
“Nationally televised?”
“My parents are…famous.” She wrinkled her nose. Of all the F words in the world, this one was by far the worst. “My mother is a therapist who turned into a TV star by having a relationship segment on daytime TV. Think Dr. Phil but female. My father is a world-renowned literary agent.”
“Sounds pretty good so far.”
“Being in the public eye is…” She shook her head. “Frankly, I hate it. People are always watching your every move, waiting for you to slip up so they can document your mistakes for a quick buck. It’s gross.”
Trent watched her curiously, like one might observe something through glass at a zoo exhibit. She hated it when people looked at her like that, like a…specimen. Being the source of someone’s curiosity made her uncomfortable.
“That’s why you’re here?” he asked. “To hide?”
She thought about denying it for a minute, but what was the point? It didn’t matter what Trent thought of her. He didn’t know her. Nobody did here. And she was taking a break from trying to win people over. “Yeah, basically. My parents are in the process of getting a divorce and it’s…ugly.”
Like, public screaming matches ugly. They’d both ended up at a charity gig recently, drunk and mouthing off. Her father had decided to take a date—some sprite of a woman half his age with tits that looked like two half melons glued to her chest. He’d always been a better father than he was a husband, from what Cora could tell.
In any case, Cora’s mother had flipped and someone had captured the whole thing on Instagram Live. So embarrassing.
“That really sucks.” Trent frowned, and his concern was so genuine, it socked her in the chest. Even her ex hadn’t been able to muster up much empathy, instead telling her it was “hardly shocking” they were splitting up.
Sure, it was true…but sometimes she needed a little sympathy and for someone to tell her everything would turn out okay, even if that wasn’t 100 percent true.
“Honestly, it’s probably for the best.” Cora flipped another page open in the album, the smiling faces of the Walters family twisting her heart. “They didn’t really love each other. My parents are…difficult. My mother likes to control people, and I think my father had enough of it by the end.”
He should never have cheated on her mother, but there were times when Cora understood why he’d wanted out. There was only so long you could put up with someone trying to run your life.
“That’s why she never let you have a pet or play sports?”
“And it didn’t stop there.” Cora felt all her old resentments rushing back up from the depths of her soul. “I couldn’t eat anything with sugar in it, because God forbid I put on weight. I couldn’t read anything that didn’t get her seal of approval—no romance novels or anything like that. Hell, I only got to have my birthday parties the way she wanted them.”
Cora sucked in a huge breath, suddenly aware that her voice had been getting higher and higher. God, she must sound so sad. What woman in her late twenties was still hanging on to childhood grudges about birthday parties?
But it wasn’t about that, not really.
“Most people have only suitcases for baggage.” She offered him a rueful, self-deprecating smile. “Looks like I brought something extra with me…and I am totally sucking the fun out of this.”
Suddenly she was aware of how close they were sitting—knees and shoulders almost touching—and she wondered what it