This was going to be a problem.
I did not care even a little bit.
Chapter Eight
HARPER
Sunday dinner was a tradition I’d been dodging.
At this point, I’d exhausted every viable excuse and I could practically hear my mother’s voice ringing in my ears, daring me to skip out one more time. So I did the only thing I could do—pulled myself together and drove to the sprawling two-story home on Oakmont Drive.
I was the last to show, so I parked at the curb since the driveway was clogged with cars. Aaron’s black SUV, Alicia’s silver sedan, and Naomi’s battered Civic with the political sticker she refused to remove were all jammed in end-to-end.
I grabbed the bottles of wine I’d promised to bring, hip-checking the car door shut behind me. My phone went into my purse, but not before I checked it. Again.
Cole hadn’t reached out. I hadn’t heard from him since that kiss Friday night, then he had to rush off to the ER.
And that was fine, right? It was a kiss, not a commitment, not a grand gesture, not a promise. We didn’t owe each otheranything. I was a grown woman with a career and a life, not some teenager waiting by the phone for a boy to call.
Except I’d been keeping an eye on my inbox since Friday night for a message that never came.
Before I could knock, the door swung open and my mother stood there in a flowy caftan, her hair pulled back with a scarf, gold hoops catching the afternoon light.
“There she is!” My mother, Noelle, swept me into one of her hugs that smelled like shea butter and perfume. Her arms were strong around my shoulders, a hug that said ‘I love you’ and ‘where the hell have you been’ in equal measure. “We were starting to think you forgot where we live.”
“Sorry, Mom. Work’s been a lot lately.”
She pulled back, hands squeezing my shoulders, brown eyes identical to mine scanning my face. “Mmhmm. Work. Is that all that’s keeping you occupied?”
I smirked, catching the hint. “Yes, Mom. Just work.”
“Mmmhmmm.” She stepped aside, making room for me to pass. “Come on in. The gang’s all here.”
The house looked the same as it always did, but warmer if possible. Hardwood floors buffed to a shine, family photos from decades past covering every wall, furniture from 2002 that had been reupholstered twice but never replaced because my father said it was in perfectly good condition. Music thumped from a speaker on the back patio, where most of the family was gathered.
Except for my father, who was posted up where he always was on Sunday afternoons—in his brown leather recliner, feet up, watching a game with the sound muted because my mother didn’t allow hootin’ and hollerin’ in her house on the Lord’s Day. He had been retired for more than a decade but still wore the diamond-crusted watch he’d earned for twenty-five years of service with the city’s public works department. His hair hadfaded to white and his waistline was softer now, despite my mother trying to get him to walk around the block with her every evening.
He looked up when I walked in. As always, his face lit up with a bright, wide smile. “Heeey! It’s my firstborn baby girl. How you doin’?”
I bent down, pressing my lips against his cheek. “Hey, Daddy. How have you been?”
“Can’t complain. I went to the doctor on Thursday. That high blood pressure med my doctor got me on is finally workin’. Your mama’s happy about that.”
“I’m happy too. That means you’ll live forever.”
“Not hardly, but since my daughter works at a hospital, I know where I can go when I’m close.” He patted my hand, calluses rough against my skin from decades of manual work. “Ain’t seen you in a while. You still working too hard?”
I shook my head. “It’s almost like I got my work ethic from Byron Sutton.”
“A chip off the ole block.” He picked up the remote, turned the volume up half a notch when my mother wasn’t looking. “Go on out there before them kids come in here looking for you, making all that noise.”
Aaron was in the kitchen leaning against the refrigerator, phone in one hand, beer in the other. He worked in IT for a logistics company, and had been divorced for three years from a woman most of us disliked. We were thankful we got to see his daughter, Mia, regularly.
“What’s up, A-A-Ron?”
“Sup, Harpy,” Aaron said, not even looking up from his phone.
“You look tired. Having a preteen is putting you through it, huh?”
