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Adam shakes his head and laughs.
His mom arches a brow, humoring me. “What a fancy outfit for a Sunday morning.”
I shrug. “Oh, you know, just because it’s the day of rest doesn’t mean you can’t dress for success!”
I can drop the act. I’m not fooling anyone, not even Mouse. He’s sitting beside Diane, staring at me with what I swear is a knowing grin.
“I think you have a sock stuck to your shoulder,” she points out.
It’s actually a pair of socks, and they’re Adam’s. I peel them off slowly and lay them down on the counter. I think momentarily of making a Dobbie is a free elf joke, but I think the timing is all wrong. Instead, I smile awkwardly and shrug.
“Mom, Madeleine isn’t here on real estate business. She’s my girlfriend. For real this time.”
GIRLFRIEND.
Take that, Daisy.
I offer Diane a smile, but I know it more closely resembles the straight-mouthed, teeth-clenched emoji I employ in moments of panic.
Diane slaps a hand to her chest and feigns shock. “What?! No. I could never have possibly guessed that.”
I drop my hand from my neck. There’s no point in trying to keep up appearances at this point.
“If I’d known you were here, I would have tried to make myself a little more presentable,” I admit sheepishly.
“I think you look great. My son, on the other hand, could use a shower.”
I glance over and smile. Adam is leaning back against the kitchen counter in a t-shirt and pajama pants. His light brown hair is sticking up in every direction, and he looks sleepy and adorable. I would maul him if his mother wasn’t standing ten feet away.
“Long night?” she asks, and I turn into a strawberry.
“Mom, why do you ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to?”
“Because I like to watch you squirm,” she says with a confident smile.
“Could I maybe steal one of those pastries?” I ask, pointing to the light pink box on the counter. If I’m going to be subjected to interacting with my boyfriend’s mother this early on a Sunday, I need to do it while I lick icing off a cinnamon roll.
She pushes the box toward me and then passes me a paper plate. “Take as many as you’d like. I brought them for you.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know she was here,” Adam points out.
Diane grins. “I’m not half as naive as you seem to think I am, son.”
He nods. “Noted.”
I take a bite of pastry and silence falls across the kitchen. I’m reminded of the conversation I interrupted with my arrival. After I finish my first bite, I tell them I’ll be on the porch with Mouse. Neither one of them tries to follow me. Clearly, they have something to finish discussing. Unfortunately, even outside, I can hear every word. The French doors do nothing to muffle the discussion about Olivia.
I gather up the details I missed while I was sleeping. Olivia apparently showed up unexpectedly at Diane’s house last night. Diane let her in and gave her the guest room to sleep in for the night, a fact that makes me want to crush my cinnamon roll in the palm of my hand. I resist, though, because…cinnamon roll.
“What does she want?” Adam asks.
“To talk to you, of course.”
He laughs and it sounds scary, menacing. “There’s a little thing called a telephone. If she wanted to talk, she had the last five months to call me.”
“She assumed you wouldn’t answer.”
“Well she was right about that,” he says. “I probably wouldn’t have.”
“She brought Molly.”
His beloved dog.
“Why the hell would she do that? Some kind of guilt trap?”
His mom tries to calm him down. “I don’t know what she wants to talk to you about, but if you want me to tell her you aren’t open to it, I will. However, I’m going to give you some advice that I think you should take to heart. You and Olivia left things in shambles. There was no closure, no little bow to tie up loose ends. Those are the things that haunt you when you get to be my age. If you want to move on, to leave Olivia in the past, I think you should have a conversation with her, in person. If you react in anger now, I think you’ll regret it down the line.”
NO. No you won’t!
I hate Diane. I fling her cinnamon roll out into the pasture—I will not eat the bread of my enemies, and that’s exactly what she is if she wants Adam to sit down with Olivia. He loved her for so many years. God, he probably still loves her. If they see each other, all those feelings are going to come flooding back, and the fact that she brought Molly—that underhanded bitch knew exactly what she was doing. I stomp out into the pasture and kick the cinnamon roll another ten feet. It feels good to demolish something, though I am now admittedly starving.
