Gran matches my sass with her own. “Heaven’s, what would the neighbors think? The old woman going out on a date with a twenty-something-year-old man, who then comes home and sleeps on the couch with her granddaughter?”
“Scandalous!”
“A little scandal never hurt anyone,” Gran says, dusting hernails off on her red silk robe. “I’ve seen a boner, after all.”
Wyatt chokes on air.
Dad shouts his disbelief.
Mom looks like she just got hit by a freight train and run over by a semi.
I grin at Gran, who winks at me.
My mom touches a hand to her hair, then one to her stomach like she might be sick. “I need some air.”
A moment later, she’s gone, my dad following her out, Gran a few steps behind. She stops before she disappears into the breakfast nook that’ll lead her into the kitchen. “You two take your time. I’ll keep them busy.”
“I am so sorry.” I turn to Wyatt to inspect his nose again. “For all of that.”
He takes my wrists gently in his hands, lowering them between us. “You have nothing to apologize for. Are you okay?”
Meeting his eyes instead of examining his swollen nose, I huff out a breath. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just hate you had to witness that.”
“B, it’s okay,” he reiterates, shaking his head. Letting go of me, he brings his hands to my face. “She called you…”
He trails off, but I know what he’s referring to. Hopeless. Wyatt’s witnessed me come apart because of it before, but I pull my shoulders back and lift my chin in a way that would make my old pageant coach proud, though she’d tell me otherwise.
“I know. But some guy keeps telling me the opposite, and maybe it’s starting to stick.”
I don’t see Wyatt surprised very often, but the way his mouth parts and he blinks a few times at me has a soft, quick giggle slipping past my lips. It reminds me of an adorable puppy who tilts his head to the side when he experiences something new.
A grin slowly starts to spread across his face when he recovers,and he nods his head. “Okay. I like it.”
Glancing over his shoulder into the breakfast nook, I let my smile fall. “I should go deal with that.”
“You did nothing wrong here,” he says, pulling my eyes back to him. “There was nothing wrong with us sleeping on the couch together.”
“Oh, I know. Even if we’d done more than that, she’s not the boss of me.” I straighten my back further and hold myself like a Queen who has just won her title. “And I’m about to make sure she knows that.”
I find her outside, stewing on the couch in the backyard, staring at the broken fountain. She’s kicked back, looking relaxed in the cushions, one arm spread across the back, a leg crossed over the other. Like some middle-aged model who should have a drink in one hand, and a biscuit in the other for afternoon tea.
Except it’s eleven in the morning, and knowing my mother, she’d rather be sipping a mimosa.
She doesn’t look at me when I approach, but I gesture towards the loveseat anyway. “Can I sit?”
“May I,” she corrects.
Starting off on the right foot, then. “No, Mom. I’m going to say it the way I want to say it.”
Now her eyes dart to me, narrowing. “I didn’t pay for all those lessons so you could become some unpolished barnacle.”
Interesting choice, but I keep the thought to myself. “Lessons I didn’t want or ask for.”
“It gave you an excellent education on how to be proper. Howto become a lady. How to win pageants, crowns, hearts, a life that would have given you everything.”
“The life you talk about isn’t one I’ve ever wanted,” I tell her, clasping my hands in front of me rather than smoothing them over my stomach. Over a t-shirt that’s probably making new gray hair sprout beneath her dyed brown ones because it’s too long and too baggy for her liking.
She uncrosses her legs and leans in my direction. “All I ever wanted was what’s best for you. Is that truly so wrong?”
