Free Perfect on Paper by Maria Murnane

kidding me? It’s absolutely spectacular. You couldn’t pay me to live anywhere else. Besides, if you drive ten miles in any direction outside of the city, it’s usually pretty hot, at least in the summer, which will do nicely if you need to defrost.” I smiled and sipped my drink.
    He scratched his right eyebrow. Did he think I was crazy? That had been quite an outburst, even for me.
    “I still think San Francisco would beat Atlanta,” he said.
    “What’s so bad about Atlanta?” I gazed up at him and tilted my head. God, he was pretty.
    “Atlanta’s not that bad, but it’s not where I would have chosen for myself. I grew up in Florida and love the water, so I really miss living on the coast. That’s one of the things that I don’t like about working in the NBA. You don’t have much say in where you live.”
    “I guess I never thought about it that way. From the outside it all seems so glamorous and fun,” I said. Hmm. Just like my job did.
    “Did you grow up in San Francisco?” he said.
    “Sort of, near enough,” I said, dreading the inevitable next question.
    “Where does your family live now?” he said.
    I looked at the floor. “Um, it’s just my dad—he lives near Sacramento. My mom died when I was little.”
    “Oh, wow, I’m sorry to hear that.”
    “Thanks,” I said quietly.
    “That must have been really hard on both of you.”
    I nodded, my eyes still looking at the floor. What a buzzkill.
    “How did she die?” he said.
    I looked up, surprised that he had asked what most people never ever did. At this point in the conversation most people just tried to change the subject.
    “Breast cancer,” I said softly, taking a sip of my drink.
    “How old were you?”
    “Just a baby.”
    “Oh, man, so you never got to know her at all?”
    I shook my head. “Nope.”
    “Growing up without a mom must have been difficult.”
    “Um …” I tried to read those blue eyes, which seemed to be telling me that he wasn’t just being polite, that he really wanted to know.
    I took another sip of my drink and nodded. “Yeah, my dad did what he could, but he just, well, he just wasn’t a mom, you know?”
    He nodded. “Moms are pretty amazing.”
    It was the perfect chance to shift the spotlight and ask him about his mom, who I was sure was an angel given the way he’d said that, but the idiot in me kept me talking about mine.
    “Yeah, well … it was really hard because my dad had just started pitching in the minor leagues when they had me, and apparently he had a really promising future ahead of him, but then my mom got sick, and he had to give everything up….”
    He nodded again but didn’t say anything, sensing that I had more to say, just like Shane had done at Morton’s. Polite, sensitive, respectful. Wow.
    I took a deep breath. “And after he quit baseball, he wasn’t able to get it together with a real career or anything … you know … so things were hard … you know, financially … and he and I … well … we just … well, we’re just so different … so it was hard that way too … actually, it’s still pretty hard … and … and, well, I help him out sometimes, but he’s still struggling a bit with managing his money.” My voice trailed off again, and I looked back down at the floor. Why was I telling him all this?
    “I’m sorry,” he said.
    I took a sip of my drink, my gaze still down. “I’m not sure why I’m telling you all this. I’m not really used to talking about it.”
    “You feel guilty, don’t you,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
    I looked back up at him and tried to laugh. “Am I that obvious, Mr. McIntyre?”
    “Well, you’re clearly doing well for yourself now, and if he’s still having a hard time, it’s only natural to feel a little guilty about that.”
    I shrugged. “I guess. My dad sure knows how to make me feel guilty about it.”
    “I’m sure you’re more important to your dad than a career in baseball would have been,