“You’ve been reading romance novels again, haven’t you?”
“Wuthering Heights. Fucking love me some Heathcliff. Cathy needed a slap.” Catriona released a dreamy sigh. “What can I say, Mom? There’s something magical about reading about two people falling in love. I just think there’s a reason you bumped into him in the tampon aisle of all places, and you shouldn’t dismiss it just because you’re upset at him for something he did twenty years ago.”
Another shrug. “Even if it was something shitty. Really shitty. It’s important to forgive, Mom. You taught me that, too.” She flicked her eyes to the ceiling like she had all the answers to the world’s problems and Clare was an idiot. She even said it like Clare would have if the roles were reversed. Ugh. She was getting her own advice back at her from her spirited nineteen-year-old.
While she didn’t want to admit her child was right—she couldn’t stand the smugness or gloating—she was certainly right about one thing: he was in the tampon aisle. Tampons meant a wife, girlfriend, or daughter. Her heart sank. Even if she could get herself past the distress curdling her stomach, there was every chance he was already with someone.
Cat pointed at Clare’s face. “I see what you’re doing, Mom. Christ, your brain is so loud sometimes.”
“Okay, smartass, what am I doing?”
“You’re telling yourself you’re not good enough for him somehow, or that he already has someone. Well, get that out of your head right now. He doesn’t. I checked.”
Her stomach dropped to her feet as a wave of nausea crashed over her. “You asked him if he wasmarried? How much did you talk to the man?” Cat was like Clare in some ways—when she wasn’t stunned into embarrassment and flustered silence anyway, she could certainly talk.
Cat snorted. “More than you managed to. But, no. I didn’t ask him if he was married. He had no ring, no band of white skin around his finger where a ring might have been, and he didn’t pick up any of the products in that aisle.”
“Okay, Sherlock Holmes. Some people never wear their wedding band. No ring doesn’t mean no partner.”
Catriona rolled her eyes. Clare would have to start charging her a buck for every time she did it—she’d be able to cover the cost of her entire college tuition within a month.
“You could just say Sherlock, Mom. I know who he is. You don’t need the Holmes. And I know that.”
The oven timer chimed, and Cat tossed the oven mitts lying next to her at Clare. “I just feel in my bones that he’s single though.”
Oh, to have the confidence of a helpless romantic who hadn’t yet been jaded by the world around her.
“Well, no offense, kiddo. But I don’t really put much stock in your bones when it comes to matters of the heart.” She slipped on an oven mitt and jerked open the oven, stepping to the side to avoid the gust of hot air. She eased the bubbling hotdish out and onto a trivet in the middle of the table.
Cat gasped and clutched her chest. “I’m wounded, Mom. Wounded. But when things work out between you and that dreamboat, I’m not going to be shy about telling you I told you so.”
“Dreamboat?”
Cat had already slipped onto a chair and was scooping a heaped portion of food onto her plate. “I won’t let you deflect by poking fun at my choice of vocabulary. But I also have a date burning the roof of my mouth with molten lava cheese so we’re going to have to circle back.”
She jabbed her fork into the mound of food and blew on the steaming bite. “You probably still have his number, don’t you? You could totally text him first. You are a modern woman after all.” She wiggled her eyebrows before eating the food. “Mmm! So freakin’ good, Mom.”
“Apparently, in all my years of teaching, I didn’t get around to dinner etiquette. Mason! Come eat before your rude sissy eats it all.”
“I can’t help it. Expecting me not to demolish this deliciousness” —she waved her hand at the casserole dish— “as soon as it comes out of the oven… It’s just cruel and unusual.”
Clare chuckled as she got the veggies out of the steamer and put them into a serving dish.
“Dad wants to know if you can change weekends with him. He’s got something this weekend so he said he can take me next weekend.” Mason tugged open the fridge and grabbed the gallon container of chocolate milk, followed by a glass from the cabinet next to the sink.
From the moment they had separated, Captain Asshole had used Mason as a method of communication. As her grandma used to say, it boiled her piss. Why couldn’t he simply pick up the phone and drop her a text like any normal grown-ass adult instead of using their child to pass messages to her?
To Mason though, his dad hung the moon in the sky and rearranged the stars just for funsies. He probably thought he created the planets, too.
“I’ll text him, Mase. Eat.” She motioned to his empty plate with the dish of veggies in her hand.
She never gave an answer back to Mason, always replied to his dad’s game of telephone through text so there was a record of everything right there in her trusty cell phone chat history. That way, Commander Douche Nozzle couldn’t re-write his own version of the truth and nothing could come back to bite her in the ass. Theoretically, anyway.
Ugh. It had been so long since she’d been bittenanywhere. Clearing her throat, she brushed away lusty thoughts of Elliott biting her ass cheek. Or at least tried to. Once she let it into her mind there was no escaping the fact she’d pretty much let Elliott bite her anywhere.
“Mom?” Cat speared her with a look, fork paused midway between the table and her mouth. “Sit. Eat. Textinghimback can wait.”
Schooling her face, Clare took her seat. Cat was too perceptive for her own damn good. Thankfully, she must have herI hate my ex-husbandface on again rather than herI wanna do naughty things to my childhood sweetheartface.
