Now, with the quiet muffle of people around us, I was glad we came. Mark, who of course knew the hostess, had given his charming smile and finagled us a spot in the back corner. Being able to see the traffic zipping by on the highway outside the diner gave me a reassuring feeling.
“Thanks.” I peered at him over the top of my menu. “This is great.”
His smile widened. He wore a pair of jeans and a long-sleeve black shirt that stretched taut across his shoulders. He'd trimmed the beard again. Instead of curls off his chin, it contoured his face now. Would he have the same facial structure as his brother? Because if he did, he'd be devastating. Which seemed almost impossible because I couldn't imagine him any more attractive than I found him right now.
The waitress came with an extra big smile for Mark, took our orders, and left us in the quiet booth with a little wink he didn't seem to notice.
“What did Lizbeth have to say?” I asked.
His expression momentarily darkened. “Just that there are a few more approval steps I'd forgotten about before we can list it on HomeBnB. We have to have some tax and licensure things to file for in the State. She's already getting them going.”
“Wow. She's a dream.”
A weird half-shrug/awkward grimace came next. “It's better for everyone if I don't attend to those details. Lizbeth is happy to do it.”
“Are you paying her? Because we'll need to—”
“Not yet. She was happy to help get it listed without pay. She's family.”
As if that explained everything.
My immediate rebuttal surfaced: that's not sustainable. He couldn't just rely on family members to run his company without getting paid. They'd get frustrated and leave eventually, or not do great work. Although Lizbeth didn't strike me as the type, and this was a one-time deal.
So I stayed quiet.
Grandma had always been loving and supportive. For the burden she'd been left when my parents died, she rose to the challenge without fear. But age had taken most of her family away from her. Siblings. Friends. Her husband died a year before I was born. My father, her son, had been her only child. Now she was a spritely old woman living her best life in a retirement home and we supported each other.
But there had been no one else for us to fall back on.
No safety net like Mark's. No one outside of neighbors and friends that we could truly fall back on if we were in danger of losing our house, or something. The way Mark was letting me fall on him.
Did he know how lucky he was to have them?
“When is your next date?” I asked before the ensuing silence felt burdened. Then I grabbed my water, stirring the clinking ice cubes with my straw to have something to do with my hands. He laughed, then shook his head.
“Nothing lined up.”
“Oh.”
“Are you surprised?”
I shrugged. “You seemed to be pretty active in the dating world.”
“Sometimes. It ebbs and flows.”
“Does it ever stick?”
“Nah.” He shook his head, but there was a flicker that accompanied it. “Not really. It's been years since I've had anything steady, and even that lasted maybe two months. I've only been really online dating for the last couple of months.”
My head tilted to the side, unable to comprehend that a man like Mark didn't have girls lining up to date him. Sure, he wasn't perfect, and some of his quirks were absolutely maddening, but wasn't that everyone?
“You said your parents were divorced. What happened there?”
He leaned back against the booth and I wondered if I'd plunged too deep, too fast. The topic didn't trigger an immediate emotion on his face, and I wondered if that was a tell for him. If Mark was anything, he was expressive. So I let the question ride without pulling it back.
“Classic fall-in-love, fall-back-out kind of story.” He spoke dispassionately enough that I wondered if repeating the story had become rote. Still, there was an undercurrent of something there. Shock, maybe. Lingering disbelief. I'd felt that way for years after my parents died. Shouldn't divorce be mourned as well?
“Mom and Dad grew apart and should have ended it sooner than they did. Finally, when Dad was preparing to retire, they realized they couldn't live together. So they split up.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Me too.” He nodded. “It sucked. I'm the oldest and closest to my Mom. We're a lot alike in some ways, where JJ is more like my Dad. I spent a lot of time just supporting her through it. She's better now. Not quite so . . .”
“Needy?”
His lips twitched. “For lack of a better word, yes.”
“And how long have you been in love with Lizbeth?”
He sucked in a sharp, sudden breath, his eyes a puzzle of shock. By sheer determination, I held his intensely questioning gaze. The question had been a calculated risk because I could be way off base and embarrass both of us. He may not be in love with her.
Except for the sudden paleness of his face gave him away.
“That obvious?” he croaked.
“Only to me, I think.”
Mark studied me, jaw tense, for so long that I regretted asking. Did he hate me for noticing? Was he frustrated with me? So many emotions seemed to show on his face that I didn't even want to move.
“Months.” His nostrils flared. He balled up the straw wrapper and rolled it between his thumb and index finger. He paused, as if thinking, then shook his head. “I don't . . . I know I fell for her. I can't say I'm in love with her because, to be honest, I'm not sure I know what it feels like.”
“To be
