just... she’s different. I don’t really know how else to say it. She’s not like any other girl that I ever met.” I shrugged, aware that my reply explained nothing.
But Payden seemed to understand it anyway. “You just like her, and you don’t know why, and that’s that.” He nodded, staring up into the cloudy blue sky. “It happens.”
“Does it?” I jumped at the chance to drag some revelations out of Pay. The kid told none of us anything. Ever.
“I mean, yeah. I think so. Seems to. When you know you know, or whatever everybody says all the time.” Payden attempted to play off his words as nothing more than clichés, but he’d opened up just a tiny bit for a split second, and he knew it.
“Jessie seemed to like her,” I innocently observed, my elbows on the fence posts.
Payden swung his head around and glared at me. He knew exactly what I was doing. “Jessie likes everybody.”
“Okay, Pay, that’s not true at all. I’ve watched Jessie nearly set people on fire with her eyes alone.” It was true. Jessie could be fierce.
“Yeah, but those are always stupid people.” Payden grinned, and I let the subject drop.
“So the kid thing doesn’t freak you out?” I watched him closely. Payden was a horrible liar. I would know instantly if he was giving me his honest opinion.
“Avy and Braden are all over the place here anyway. What’s one more?” He smiled, and I realized this was Payden’s sibling version of “giving me his blessing”.
“I want kids anyway,” I added absently.
Payden raised his eyebrows. “Well, I guess I’ll be getting a wedding invitation like, what, tomorrow? Don’t make me wear one of those freakin’ groomsman tuxes. We have to wear that crap enough already.”
“No wedding, smart ass. And what makes you think I’d ask you to be a groomsman anyway?” I gave him a brotherly punch on the shoulder and began walking back through the field to my truck.
“’Cause Pres is a drunk and Pierce is mean and you don’t have any other friends,” he called after me, laughing openly.
He wasn’t wrong though. As far as people that I kept close to me, it was almost entirely limited to family. Part of that was because we lived and worked together.
The other part was that it was just too hard to differentiate genuine intentions from money worship. I still kept in touch via texting with my old college buddies, but they still had absolutely no idea who I really was.
That was good enough for me.
Preston was nowhere to be seen today, so I assumed that he’d gone home with the brunette the night before and had a sleep over. Pierce, however, was hard at work in his office, clicking away on his computer and not stopping until I was planted on a seat directly across from him.
I felt like I’d been sent to the principal’s office.
“What can I do for you today, Penn?” He eyed me patiently, which was a luxury that he rarely gave to anyone aside from his children.
“Anne. What did you think of Anne?” There was no point in beating around the bush with Pierce. He always saw right through everything.
“I thought she was beautiful and polite. Not a bad place to start.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“She’s got a kid.” I knew there was a more eloquent way to share this, but it kept just flying out of my mouth unchecked.
Pierce’s face altered slightly. “Okay. Is the father around?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I guess he could be. I don’t know.” And I really didn’t.
“Why does it seem like you’re letting all of the blank spaces stay blank?” Pierce was studying me now, exactly the way that Dad always did when we had a serious conversation.
I tensed. “What do you mean?”
“When two people meet, there are certain general pieces of information that they naturally share. It just happens. You two aren’t doing that.” It wasn’t that Pierce was wrong. It was more so that I had no idea how he’d gleaned so much from a two-minute conversation with Anne the night before.
“You know I don’t like to talk about... the way things are here. It makes people weird.” I was highly uncomfortable now.
“You don’t like to talk about the fact that you come from a wealthy family and live in a giant house. I know. And I understand. I think she will too. You’re not a spoiled little rich boy, Penn. You never