Not So Far Away (Worlds Collide The Duets #1) - LL Meyer Page 0,78

hand to interlace our fingers.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. Well Daniela and Rosa mostly. Carmen was . . . concerned until we got to the part about your name being Elsa.” I grin at her. “I hope you know how to sing and dance.”

“What?” The word comes out with half-choked amusement.

“Hey, we’ll be using every possible advantage. I don’t want this to get ugly.”

Her happy countenance slips. “You think it could get ugly?”

“Sorry, wrong word. Listen, for now, we don’t need to worry about the girls. I’m pretty sure I’ve got us covered, okay?” She watches me pull her hand to my lips for what I hope is a reassuring kiss.

“Okay.”

The restaurant is a nice Italian place that Desiree told me about with candles on the tables. We get a booth and she seems pleased when I slide in beside her instead of across from her.

Over dinner we get to know each other better. We talk and talk and talk, mostly about the future and where we see ourselves in five or ten years. Ironically, neither of us brings up what we’d like out of a long term relationship. I can’t speak for her, but for me, things between us feel fragile at this point, like they’re not yet strong enough to hold up our combined hopes and dreams, no matter how tentative they are.

While we both avoid discussing the obvious, she has no reservations talking about her life plan, which she has every intention of implementing as soon as she finishes her degree in a little over a month from now. She says she’s hoping for some kind of job in municipal or state government, or maybe a charitable organization. It kind of . . . awes me. I love to see her like this; strong, confident, so sure her lofty goals are attainable.

The tables turn though when she starts putting the same questions to me. For reasons I find hard to pin-point, talk of the future unnerves me.

“I don’t know,” I say evasively. “In ten years, the girls will be finishing high school.” I shudder, not able to contemplate them as grown women, let alone as teenagers with minds of their own. “And my grandmother will be eighty-two. Neither of those things is something I like to think about.”

Her head tilts as she considers me, and I’m struck by how beautiful she is with her big brown eyes shining in the candlelight. “But what about you?” she asks.

I blink. “What about me?”

“What do you want for your life in ten years?”

Even after I think on it for a few seconds, I can only shrug. “I’ll obviously still be working my ass off. Teenagers are expensive. And I’m sure a couple of them will want to go to college.” I say it flippantly, but the cold, hard truth of it hits me a second later. “Jesus,” I whisper. “What if a couple of them want to go to college?”

Her expression turns apologetic. “I didn’t mean to stress you out, Scott.”

“Oh, no? How do you pay for Stanford? I can’t even imagine how much that costs.”

“You’re right. It’s outrageously expensive, and I’m lucky that my dad is still willing to pay my tuition.”

That gets my attention. She almost never talks about her parents. “Why do you say still willing to pay?”

She looks rueful. “I’m not exactly a teenager fresh out of high school, am I?”

I feel my lips twitch. “True.”

“After I ditched school in Spain, I disappeared for a while. It understandably freaked my parents out. Then, once they found out I had no intention of going back to school anytime soon, my mom pretty much disowned me. Two years later when I came home, she said I was crazy if I thought I could just show up and continue on as if nothing had happened.” Her eyes dart away, but her voice is still steady when she continues. “And she had a point. I see that now. But at the time, we both had our pride.”

Pride? “What does that mean?”

“My mom wanted me to prove myself worthy of . . . being their daughter again, I guess.”

Say what? My face must convey that question because she goes on, almost sheepishly.

“Yeah, she had a whole list of rules I had to follow, including living with them. She wanted to control everything. Who I dated, who my friends were, what I wore . . . even what causes I gave my time to.” She sighs. “I was almost twenty-four years old and I couldn’t