“Every time I’ve flown before, they booked me in coach.”
He stretched his legs out as far as the high-dollar seating would allow, then shrugged. “I can’t sit in coach.” She looked up, her eyes bright and inquisitive over the rims of the cheetah-print half-glasses perched on the end of her nose. “Well, I can, but I’d have to buy the whole row to have enough leg room. It’s actually cheaper for me to fly first class.”
She blinked and cocked her head to the side. “You know, I never thought about that,” she confessed.
Pleased to have found a topic other than his upcoming appearance as Greg Chambers’s whipping boy, he nodded. “I order my furniture custom too. Particularly couches and beds.” He tried to focus more on the relief he felt when his drool stain came out of the Ultrasuede sofa than the thought of chasing Millie around his outsized bed. The best way to do so was to talk about the elephant between them. “I would have had the kitchen and bath counters lifted, but that wouldn’t have worked for Mari.”
“I never thought about that either. What a pain.”
He chuckled. “I should have stopped eating my Wheaties, huh?”
Millie laughed and extracted a pack of chewing gum from her bag of tricks and offered him a stick. “I bet you cost your poor parents a fortune to feed.”
“Most of the time it was only me and my dad. And yeah, I remember the grocery bill being pretty outrageous.” Ty smiled as he waved her offering away. The memory of his father standing at the stove in his work pants, the sleeves of his shirt rolled back to avoid catching splatters as he stirred, filled Ty’s head. “God, he was a horrible cook. It’s a wonder we didn’t both starve.”
She laughed and unwrapped a stick of gum for herself. “He never got better?”
Ty stared, transfixed by the way she bent the pliant piece into an accordion against her tongue. A waft of fruity sweetness tickled his nostrils. He glanced down at the pack she’d tossed back into the cavernous bag, shaking his head as he noted she preferred watermelon gum to anything as boring as mint or cinnamon.
“No,” he whispered with an affectionate smile.
“Is he still with us?”
The cautious note in her voice snapped him out of his stupor. He wasn’t exactly sure what they were supposed to be talking about, so he responded with a noncommittal, “Hmm?”
She flipped her reading glasses up onto her head and met his eyes. “Your dad. Is he still alive?”
“Oh!” He grasped the thread of the conversation and held on tight, tucking his chin to his chest as he chuckled at his own distractibility. “Yes. He’s good. Lives south of Sarasota. Plays golf three hundred days a year, likes to brag he has all his original manufacturer parts, and keeps a string of girlfriends who cook for him.”
“Good for him!”
Millie’s eyes crinkled when she smiled, and an attractive pair of brackets creased her cheeks when she grinned. Of all the things he liked about her, these two features were near the top of his list. And the great thing about Millie was that the list of her assets was long and not strictly physical. She was real. Completely without filler. Or filter, for that matter.
Mari couldn’t match his dad’s brag in terms of original parts. Ty had paid for the porcelain veneers and impressive rack himself. But what irked him more than external artifice was the way she embraced her “fake it till you make it” attitude. Hell, she’d even had a little sign on her bathroom wall saying that exact thing. Mari wasn’t one to work on improving herself. She preferred to pretend she was already all the things she wanted to be.
“My dad is actually flying out to Reno with some of his buddies. We’ll play a few rounds.”
It hadn’t taken him long to discover the charm and bravado Mari had displayed during their courtship was an act, but his father had figured it out right away. He and Mari never clicked, and Ty had been too oblivious to figure out why.
“That’ll be nice.”
“He’s a good man,” Ty said gruffly. “A smart one too—he’s letting me foot the bill.” Millie laughed, and Ty allowed his head to fall back as he wondered how the apple had fallen so far from the proverbial tree.
Behind the facade, his Mari was possibly the most insecure woman he’d ever met. Once, before one of the chancellor’s dinner parties, he’d found Mari standing in front of the mirror, practicing which smile she’d use with each conversational tidbit she’d memorized from that day’s news. At the time, he’d felt bad for her. In truth, it broke his heart a little. But when he tried to engage her in conversation about the same topics, she waved them off as boring and started rambling about her next redecorating project.
He smiled back at Millie, wishing their time alone could last. From the time she’d shown up at his sliding door, Millie had taken charge. Bullied him, really, but he didn’t mind too much. She was beautiful when she was bossy. Plus she seemed completely relaxed with him. He liked her ease. And he found her confidence intoxicating.
Though he was ashamed to admit how lonely he’d been in his marriage, Ty hadn’t realized exactly how much his and Millie’s easy camaraderie meant to him until he’d kissed her and all thoughts of comfort went flying out the door.
She’d been the first person to befriend him when he came to work at Wolcott. She’d helped smooth the way to a cordial relationship with Kate Snyder, the women’s basketball coach—a minor miracle, considering Ty’s hiring probably cost Kate her first marriage. Her ex had been considered the heir apparent for the job, and when he didn’t get the spot, he’d blamed Kate for not using her pull to make his promotion happen. Such bullshit. Still, Kate was happy now.
He was poised on
