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her from the corner of his eye, her head dropping so that she was looking at her hands folded in her lap. He said nothing, giving the woman encouragement to continue. It wasn’t that he was curious about her life, or that he cared about her past and how she’d come to this point in her life; it was that, well, he hadn’t a real, honest conversation with anyone in years. Jim and John weren’t conversationalists.
    “My father is a neurologist who firmly believes that he is superman and that everyone must be as accomplished as he, if not more so, to even be considered a human being. He served ten years in the Marines, the last four being spent earning his bachelors’. My mother, who was originally a receptionist at the hospital that my father did his internship with, is an alcoholic who, upon meeting my father, became a housewife who leeches off of his funds. Her thoughts on life are that a woman should marry into the upper classes and do nothing with her life. She’s accomplished nothing except creating every vodka concoction you could imagine and singlehandedly keeping Advil in business.
    “My sister and I are best friends, bonded together through the criticism from both our mother and father. For dad, it was our education that was most important. Our home became a military-style boot camp to keep us on track. Pursuing anything other than our education had to in some way benefit a career in the medical field or law, or something just as reputable. Art, sports, dance; all of these were considered a waste of time and were therefore banned from our household.
    “For mom, it was being desirable that she demanded, even at a young age. We were practically pimped out to other families with young boys our age or a year or two older, as our parents tried to find a suitable match for us. Our marriages weren’t arranged, per se, but our parents were very adamant on who they expected us to wed.” She paused as she struggled with her inner conflict.
    Now he was genuinely interested. Her family seemed the opposite of his in almost every way and, in part, he wished that his father had been as ambitious as Brea’s father was and had been. Still, he couldn’t imagine his parents having expected him to marry, much less choosing the woman for him.
    When she didn’t continue, much to his own surprise, George urged her to continue. “What happened? Did you marry?” He hadn’t planned on the next question leaking from his lips, but it suddenly mattered; suddenly mattered very much that he know the answer to the question. “ Are you married?”
    Brea laughed, a sweet, lyrical sort of laugh that made George want to join in, though he couldn’t remember the last time he had genuinely felt the pull to laugh about anything.
    “Married?” she exclaimed. “Oh God, no!”
    This time, George couldn’t contain himself from snorting at her response. The mention of marriage would have made him react in much the same way. “I said they had expectations, not that I did as they wanted,” she huffed lightly. “Honestly, I almost married.”
    George was unsure if she stopped because the thought of this man still hurt, or if she thought George uninterested, but he was very interested. He was afraid to make an attempt at pulling more information from her, for fear that she would close up and decide that she had told enough, but as they sat there in silence, he realized that she likely already had.
    “This man that you were to marry, what happened to him? Was it a great disappointment to your parents when the wedding was called off?”
    Brea sighed, turning so that she faced him, her auburn waves over one shoulder, the light of the fire casting deep shadows across her smooth face. Her back was to the arm of the chair, her legs stretched out across the couch towards him, her feet only inches away. It was a casual move, but incredibly sensual as well. If he only placed his hand on the couch beside his thigh, he would touch her. She was still