Page 56 of An Engagement for Erica

“It’s bigger than my last place,” he said, looking around his apartment.

“I understand that. Harmony and I lived in New Rochelle and commuted in. It was more time but cheaper and we got more space. I didn’t always have to be in the office.”

Usually she wasn’t even in New York State working on projects, so it hadn’t mattered all that much to her.

“I had about eight hundred square feet so this is a lot. That took some getting used to having grown up in much bigger houses.”

“What happened to the house you grew up in?” she asked.

“My mother sold the house my grandfather had bought her. She wanted to give it back to him and he insisted it was hers. She felt bad, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I didn’t want the house. My father still lived in the house I grew up in first. It’s on the market now.”

“Too many bad memories for you to want it?” she asked.

“I haven’t wanted to step foot back in it. I had to force myself to go through and see if there was anything I should have or keep. There was nothing. I walked out and hired someone to go in and clean it. There have been some showings but no offers. I want to drop the price to just get rid of it and the realtor begged me not to.”

“Does she think she can get what it’s listed as?” she asked.

In her mind, it had to be a high-priced house and those would have fewer people looking at it or who could afford it.

“She does. I got a text that she has a showing tomorrow and has a good feeling about it. I don’t care. I want it gone.” He turned to look at her from where he’d walked into the kitchen to get a bottle of water and handed her one too. “My mother is supposed to get the money for the house. We fought over it.”

“You don’t want her to have it?” she asked. She didn’t expect that of him.

He laughed. Not a funny sound.

“She doesn’t want it. She wants me to have it. I don’t want it. Guess that tells you how we both feel about it.”

Erica smiled. “Not a bad problem to have,” she said. “Most people would think you’re nuts. It’s memories that suck, but you could use that money to make better ones. Even if it’s thumbing your nose in the air over your father’s treatment of you and your mother.”

“My mother is going to love you.”

That had taken her back.

Letting her sister know about Tucker was one thing. It’s not like she was telling her mother just yet.

But if his mother was coming to town, it stood to reason she’d meet her.

How did this get even more complicated?

“Is that a good thing?” she asked.

“Yes. Why would you ask that?”

“Because you weren’t smiling when you said it,” she said.

He took a drink and nodded his head. “I feel as if things are moving so slow with us and then there are moments we are on the bullet train.”

“Glad to know I’m not alone,” she said.

He put his water bottle down and reached his hand out for her.

She didn’t hesitate to go toward him.

“Would you be put off if I kissed you?”

“Well, Tucker. Considering we are engaged and all, I’d think most people would assume we’ve at least kissed.”

The smile he bestowed on her said he wasn’t just a slice of bacon, but a whole darn slab of it.

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