Page 30 of Sweet Somethings

"What did she do for a living? How did she make money?"

"She did a lot of stuff—retail, restaurant cashier, dog walker, holiday elf."

"Holiday elf?" Juliette echoed.

He found himself smiling again. "Yeah, she got a job at the mall, one of Santa's elves. I was about ten. I'd go there with her and wander around while she put little kids on Santa's lap."

"But you didn't believe in Santa by then?"

"I never believed in him."

"Never? Not even when you were really young?"

He shrugged. "I tried, but he didn't show up at my house. And when my mom worked at the mall, I saw Santa throwing back shots in the parking lot."

"That's not something you should have seen."

"Trust me, that's the least of the somethings I shouldn't have seen."

"It sounds like a hard childhood, Roman." Sympathy filled her gaze.

He thought about her words. "I didn't really know how hard it was until I got older."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know why we're talking about this."

"Because I asked, and we're friends."

"Are we?"

"I'd like to think so."

"We just met."

"Is there a mandatory time requirement on friendship?" she asked. "Why didn't you know how hard you had it until you were older?"

"Because it was my life. It was my normal. And when my mom would go into rehab or just disappear, and some social worker put me in foster care, I was with other kids who were bad off, too. But when I came to Fairhope, I saw an entirely different world. I thought I was on a movie set for a while."

She smiled. "It can feel that way at times. You kind of liked it, though, didn't you?"

"I didn't want to. I didn't want to be here. I wanted to go home."

"Even though it wasn't great?"

"Even though," he admitted. "It was what I knew."

"That makes sense. I just wish it hadn't been so bad."

"Well, we don't get to choose what family we're born into."

"Which brings us back to Cameron."

He was actually relieved they were moving off his past, because once again he'd said far too much. "What do you want to do now?"

"I got Donna and Cameron's address. I think we should pay them a visit. We can take them some desserts. She seemed to like the Wish cookies last night. Maybe if we get into the house, we can see how things look."

"It's really not your business."

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