Page 8 of Keeping Score

It was funny. You’d think setting my best friend up with my brother would make them both more distant, but actually, it sort of jump-started my relationship with my brother again.

I saw him more now than I had since we were kids. I don’t know what miracle Cassie had worked on him, but I wasn’t complaining.

And with Liam’s help, Cassie had made some insane progress of her own, though she still carried a few scars from childhood. There were some conditionings that took longer to escape from.

I saw it now, in the way her back went rigid every time her phone buzzed. She was always expecting it to be some emergency text from the babysitter saying—I don’t know—that the house burned down? That Lily, in all her three-year-old capability, ran away? That an earthquake affecting only the area surrounding Liam and Cassie’s house destroyed their home?

If you could dream it, Cassie could worst-case-scenario catastrophize it. I couldn’t say I didn’t understand where it was coming from. She was still always waiting for the other shoe to drop. But Liam was helping her through it. And luckily, things had been calm for them the last few years. They were happy.

But old habits die hard, I guess.

“I should call the babysitter.” Cassie bit her lip, looking over to my brother.

“Nope,” he said, laying his hand on top of hers as she reached for her phone. “Everything’s fine, baby.”

“Okay.” She nodded. “You’re right.”

While they talked, I checked my phone again, the way I’d done all day.

It was stupid, waiting for a birthday text from my dad. He probably didn’t know it was today. It wasn’t his fault—dads were notorious for having bad memories. They forgot things all the time—birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. It didn’t mean they didn’t care.

Besides, he’d been gone for most of my birthdays, so the date wouldn’t really have stuck out in his brain. It was only the last few years we’d been back in contact, so it was too much to expect him to remember some random date.

Still, I felt that familiar pang of disappointment when I didn’t have any notification from him.

“Maggie!” my mother’s voice appeared right behind me.

I let out a shriek of surprise, shoving my phone away before she could see whose text thread I’d been in.

I’d made a point over the last few years that I’d been seeing him to never reference him in front of my mother. Liam barely tolerated the subject, but my mother would absolutely blow a gasket over it. She’d always been fragile when it came to him.

“Hi, Mom,” I said, standing up to give her the hug I knew she was coming over for.

“Look at my big girl,” she said, shaking me side to side. “Thirty years old! I can’t believe how fast time goes.”

“Mom—” I tried to pull away.

“Just you wait,” she pointed at Liam and Cassie, “one day they’re babies, the next they’re a fully grown woman. And no one warns you how fast it goes by.”

Cassie’s lip quivered, and I couldn’t help but laugh. My mom knew better than to pull on Cassie’s heartstrings in public.

“Look at everything you accomplished for yourself. A successful career, a loving partner. I’m so proud of you, Maggie.”

I wanted to ask her why. It wasn’t like she had anything to do with those things.

She hadn’t wanted me to be a lawyer. She cautioned me against dating one of Liam’s teammates. Everything I had, I’d done on my own.

But I wasn’t about to get into it with her. Not on my birthday.

Before I had to fumble for a way to interact with my mother in a way that didn’t make me lose my mind, Brody stepped in.

“You and me both, Diane,” he joked, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “This girl’s a gift to society.”

“And you,” my mom turned her attention on him, just like he must’ve known she would, “arranging all this? All the time it must’ve taken you—”

I mouthed a thank you at him for the escape he’d given me while my mom continued to talk his ear off. He winked, giving me the go-ahead to make a break for it before turning his full attention to her.

He was good that way. Always willing to take one for the team.