CHAPTER 19
Mara
I don’t know whose jaw hung open the most: my mom’s, Nate’s, or my own. I looked back and forth between the two of them, trying to figure out if this was real. How the hell did my mom and Nate know each other? They must have somehow met during a college outreach program in Clark County. But that didn’t make sense. My mom was a middle school teacher and Nate would be the last person to do outreach for middle school students. They didn’t have the maturity level he was used to.
Nate handed Mom the flowers. “It’s a small world,” he said. “Thanks for inviting me.”
“A very small world,” Mom said. She took the flowers and smiled. Okay. That was good. Mom had smiled back. That was better than throwing the bouquet in his face.
“Tell me,” I begged, “How small is a small world?”
My mind instantly went back to Nate’s story about the ex that had betrayed him, pretending like she didn’t know him and using his ideas for her own paper. But that wasn’t like Mom. She had raised me with different morals. Or what if ‘Lisa’ was a made-up name? A way to give her, potentially my mom, more privacy? But I highly doubted that. Mom had buried herself in everything and anything to stay occupied, once Dad passed. But she didn’t seem like the type to be into BDSM.
“We were in the same dorm rooms back in freshman year,” Nate said. “Looks like you’re doing good, Diane. Wow. You ended up marrying John, then.”
“And this is our daughter, Mara,” she looked at me, then laughed. “But I guess you know that.” She shrugged. “You both get over here.” She opened her arms for a hug and took turns embracing us both. “Now come in already.”
Mom quickly went to the kitchen to fix our drinks while Nate and I settled in.
“Not the ex-slave?” I asked quietly. Nate shook his head. Even though they both seemed calm, it must have been a weird coincidence for both of them. They had gone to undergrad in Southern California, and somehow all of us had ended up in Las Vegas. In the grand scheme of things, stranger things had happened. But to know someone from the dorms, and then to meet their daughter, unbeknownst to you, years later? That was strange.
“You okay?” Nate asked. It wasn’t until he asked that I realized I was clutching the strap of my bag with a death grip that turned my hands white. Now I had to figure out what it meant for my mom and Nate to know each other—like dorm roomslet’s get drunk and crash the dining commonsknow each other—on top of what Dr. Smith said about Nate’s intentions. That I shouldn’t trust him. That he didn’t actually want me. Nor did he respect me.
“Fine,” I said. Because it wasn’t time to talk about my insecurities. Not when Mom had cooked dinner and we were on her time.
Mom had made plates full of steak, potatoes, and garlic green beans, to be consumed with large glasses of wine. I took that as a sign. She was excited to meet the new man in my life. So pleased, in fact, that she made steaks for us. I really, really hoped the wholewe knew each other in collegethingwouldn’t be weird.
But as long as they weren’t exes, did it matter?
I needed to cement that differentiation for myself. I had to know more. “So you knew Dad then?” I asked Nate.
“John was in the room next door.”
“Nathan tutored him in writing for a while,” Mom said. I stabbed at a bite of steak.
“Only once your father realized he couldn’t actually get any schoolwork done with Diane,” Nate said. I paused, my fork frozen in the air. Nowthatwas kind of awkward. But I shrugged it off. Tried to, at least. My parents had been adults, like I was now. It wasn’t a big deal. Still, your parents screwing like rabbits instead of studying wasn’t the best thought for my appetite.
But steak was steak. And I had to be normal. Because this was normal. I ate the bite.
“Did you two meet at LVU?” Mom asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“She’s very bright,” Nate said. I blushed.
“You already have your BA, don’t you?” Mom asked Nate.
“We’re in the humanities,” he said.
“Oh, you’re a returning graduate student, then?” Mom said. She lifted her eyebrows at me, then turned back to Nate. “You’re in the same department?”
“Nate’s actually my…” I looked at him, then back at Mom. “My partner in the Crossing Collaborations Contest.”
“Then you’re her professor?” Mom asked, a tone in her words that implied distrust. It wasn’t a harsh tone, but she clearly wasn’t thrilled.
“For the semester,” I said.
“Oh.” She picked at her potatoes, then looked up and forced a smile. “What class?”
