She muttered something he couldn’t hear, then sighed loudly. “I overheard Cooper talking to Luka. He said he was giving up his dream of going to college out of state because he was worried about leaving me. He said I depended on him too much.” She looked away. “He told Luka I never date and while he didn’t say it, I’m sure he was thinking about the fact that I haven’t had sex since before he was born.”

Her mouth twisted. “My son thinks I’m a loser, which is awful, but I can live with that. What I can’t stand is him ruining his life because of me. I want him to go away to school. Okay, I don’t want it, want it, but it’s important. He should have the chance to follow his dreams without worrying that I’m dragging him down.”

There were a lot of words and a lot of information. Keith planned to deal with it all, but right now he couldn’t get past one incredible statement.

“You haven’t had sex since you were seventeen?” he asked, unable to keep the incredulity out of his voice.

“Oh, my God! That’s what you got from all that? I have a problem with my son.”

“Yes, and we need to talk about that, but you haven’t had sex in seventeen years?”

She glared at him. “We can’t all be famous football players who have hundreds of women throwing themselves at us.”

“You don’t like women that way.”

She made a strangled sound in her throat. “It was an example.” She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “I lived with my parents until I graduated from college. They had very strict rules. Doing something fun like dating was not allowed. By the time Coop and I got our own place, I’d kind of forgotten how to date. It just happened.” Her gaze narrowed. “It’s not like I haven’t had an orgasm, you idiot.”

Whoa. He had not planned for the topic to take that turn. He tried to push away the automatically generated images, but they were stubborn. How did she do that? By hand? With toys? Both?

Heat flared unexpectedly. Thankfully their server arrived with the drinks, offering a distraction.

Ellen thanked the woman, then took a sip of her cosmo. Her happy smile hit him square in the gut.

“That’s nice,” she said. “I feel so sophisticated. Anyway, like I said, my parents were strict. They were disappointed in me when I turned up pregnant. Not that I blame them. But they did overreact. I wasn’t allowed to have anything like a social life. I raised Coop, went to college, did homework and had a part-time job. There were no boys.” Her expression turned wistful. “No time for anything fun, except what I did with him. They firmly believed love came at a price.”