Lauren peered at me over a steaming mug of cappuccino. “You mentioned something about having lived in L.A. before?”

Despite the kisses we’d shared, she hadn’t come around to the idea of going out with me, so until she did, I dragged her ass to coffee as often as she’d let me. She might not consider these dates, but as far as I was concerned, they were near enough. We hung out, we talked, we flirted—if that wasn’t dating, I didn’t know what was.

“Yeah, for a few years when I was a kid.”

“Oh yeah?” she asked, taking a sip of her coffee. When she set the mug down, there was a dollop of foam stuck to the tip of her nose.

“You’ve got something …” I said, leaning across and wiped the milk away with my thumb. I popped my finger in my mouth and took my time licking it clean. Yeah, it was a lewd gesture, but I wanted her remembering what it had felt like to have my tongue on other parts of her. “Not quite the same thing, but it’ll have to do.”

She swiped her hand over her nose, both to finish cleaning her face and to hide her smile. “You’re incorrigible.”

“I’m horny is what I am,” I told her unapologetically. Not only would she not agree to a proper date with me, but she’d also been diligent about us not being alone together. The few times I’d managed it, she’d been skittish, and so I’d held off on kissing her again. I wanted Lauren like mad, but I didn’t want to press my luck and send her running.

She rolled her eyes. “Tell me about L.A. It’s the one thing we have in common.”

“That’s not true,” I argued. “We both love it when I go down on you.”

She glared at me and said, “You must really want me to leave.”

“Fine,” I laughed, holding up my hands in surrender. “I’ll behave.”

“Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it,” she answered with a twitch of her lips.

For as much as Lauren tried to complain about the way I flirted with her, I knew she secretly enjoyed it—those suppressed smiles gave her away. If I thought for even one second that my filthy come-ons and innuendos made her uncomfortable, I’d stop. Still, my age was a significant barrier between her and me, which meant I needed to be able to sit with her and have a mature, adult conversation every once in awhile too.

“My dad played professional soccer, and when I was a kid he signed on to play with the L.A. Magic. We lived in Malibu until I was 13.”

Lauren sat forward and flattened her palms against the table, her eyes wide. “Are you telling me your dad is Callum Casey?”

I groaned and threw my head back with a grimace. “Not you too.”

Lauren laughed. “No, not me. My friend Willow.” She eyed me speculatively. “Your dad’s kind of a legend.”

I fidgeted uncomfortably in my seat. “Yeah, I know.”

“And I’m getting the impression you don’t like it,” she observed thoughtfully, taking another sip of her coffee.

“My dad and me …” I ran an agitated hand through my hair and looked around the cafe. It was well after the midday rush, and there was only one other customer in the place. She wore a serious set of headphones over her ears, so I knew she wasn’t paying attention to our conversation. “Let’s just say our relationship is complicated.”

“How so?”

I sighed. “As long as they were married, he cheated on my mom. Right up until she filed for divorce a few years ago and moved to Spain with her best friend.”

“Ah, right. The nanny,” she answered knowingly.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, my voice shaking with disbelief.

Lauren set her mug down and leaned back in her chair. “I read about it on a magazine cover at the grocery store.”

As far as I was aware, the housekeeper had been the only woman he’d fucked under our roof. Shit, I had a half-brother as a result. But our nanny too? When my next-door neighbor Sage, a girl three years older than me, had explained with an air of superiority that Sam was probably gone because she’d been too pretty and my mom had been jealous, I’d believed her. For being only 13, Sage had known things about the fucked up ways our inner circle had worked. It was only much later that I’d understood my mom had had every right to be jealous.

“God, he fucked the nanny too,” I groaned.

She crossed her arms and tilted her head, studying me intently. “Ah shit, I’m sorry. You didn’t know.”

I fisted my hands, fighting back my rage over all the ways my dad had wronged our family. It’d been a long time since I’d been confronted so explicitly with his misdeeds, and because Lauren was the one doing it, I didn’t know how to channel my frustration. It used to be that I’d tell the person to fuck off—or plant my fist in their face—but I couldn’t do that to her.

Eoin was really the only other person I’d talked about my dad with, but if I was going to persuade Lauren to be my girl, she needed to know me—the real me. After all, I knew all about the trials and tribulations she’d endured when her dad died, and then later when she’d had to drop out of university to take care of her mother. It was only fair I share my history with her too.

I took a deep breath and relaxed my fists. Taking a drink from my cooled coffee, I said, “I have a half-brother from our housekeeper. And several other secret siblings no one ever talks about.” I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. Fuck, I hated talking about this.

She reached across the table and rested her hand over mine and gave it a soft squeeze. “I’m sorry. That must have been difficult.”

“My dad can be the greatest guy you’ll ever meet or the biggest fucking asshole you know. It all depends on your point of view, I guess.”

“And what is he to you?”

I stared down at the beat up table for a beat, scraping the thumbnail of my free hand back and forth until I’d carved out a notch in the wood. Then, raising my eyes back to hers, I said, “A little of both.”

After a few moments of silence, Lauren slid her hand away and clasped her hands in front of her like a prim and proper school teacher. “I love my mom, she’s amazing. But sometimes I resent her too.”

I sucked in a startled breath and my head shot back. “What?”

“I just want you to know you’re not alone. Not every family is perfect.”

“Your mom didn’t cheat on your dad,” I reminded her with a cynical laugh.

“No, she didn’t. But … never mind.” She looked away and her cheeks colored. “Forget I said anything.”

“Oh no you don’t,” I said, enveloping her clasped hands in my larger ones. My eyes flicked between Lauren’s, begging her to keep talking. I’d been surprised by her admission, but this was the most real we’d been with each other. For a minute there, it had felt like we’d been connecting on a deeper, more meaningful level. “Don’t go shutting down on me now.”

Her head swung back around and our gazes locked. “I’m not dumb. I know it’s not the same thing—your dad and my mom. I just meant that I get how exhausting and frustrating it can be to have a difficult relationship with one’s parent.”

I slid my hands away and cupped my mug. Spinning it in my hands, I said, “It wouldn’t be so bad if people didn’t sweep his sins under the rug because of who he is. And you would think he’d have learned his lesson by now, but I doubt he ever will. It’s only a matter of time before the next baby mama comes forward.”

“I don’t mean to be insensitive, but hasn’t he ever heard of condoms?”

I laughed. “Believe it or not, I’m the result of a broken condom.”

“No way,” she laughed along with me. “Okay, so not condoms. What about a vasectomy or something? If he can’t keep it in his pants, surely he’s considered other methods of birth control.”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. “I don’t think he cares, to be honest.” I went back to scraping the table with my nail. “He’s fucking loaded, so he just pays the women off and sets up a trust for the kid for when it turns 18.”

Lauren shook her head with a sigh. “Shit, all I can say is I’m sorry. That sucks.”

“It does,” I agreed. “But let’s stop talking about my asshole dad. Tell me what it was like at Harvard.”

And so she did. For the next two hours, we sat huddled together at that little table in that warm café and I fell even harder.