Page 181 of Manhattan Bossholes

“He’ll want you to call him Henry now.”

“Henry,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “Sounds funny.”

“It’ll grow on you.”

“I really am happy for you, though. You know how much I adored him as a teacher, and how much he inspired me to want to teach English myself.”

“I hoped you would feel this way.”

My mother placed two mugs of tea on the table, then kissed the top of my head before sitting down. “By the way, what terrible secret did you think I was hiding?”

“Oh my God!” I laughed at how foolish I was about to sound. “I’d imagined anything and everything from early retirement to you moving down to a beach and opening a fruit stand. I had a really good alien abduction theory going, too. Aiden thought it was hilarious.”

“Aiden, huh?” my mother asked. She sipped her tea. “I’ve been hearing a lot about him lately.”

I ran my finger around the rim of my mug. “Yes, well, we work together now. And he had to help me pull off the reunion when Trish dumped it on me.”

“Is that all?” My mother tipped her head, regarding me with knowing eyes. Eyes that had always been able to see through what I wasn’t saying. “I think this is the part where you update me on your love life.”

I pulled my mug closer, inhaling the steam. Why did I feel sixteen years old again? “What do you mean?”

“I may have been otherwise occupied when you walked in⁠—”

I snorted. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

My mother pointed a long finger at me. “Watch it,” she said, smiling despite her warning. “I’m still your mother. And don’t think I didn’t notice your sex hair or your ‘just kissed’ lips.”

I flushed, touching my fingers to my lips.

“Should I assume it was Aiden?”

I nodded. “We’re sort of…back together.”

“As of when?”

“Well, tonight I guess.” I sipped my tea, letting that thought settle over me. What a wild time it had been. I supposed I owed Trish a thank you for bringing us back together here, where it all began. “I think we’ve been tiptoeing around it for weeks now, but tonight…it all just fell into place.”

My mother bit her lip, not saying anything for a second.

“What is it?”

“Are you happy?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Then that’s wonderful, honey. Really. I did always like Aiden when you two were dating…”

“But?” I asked, hearing the hesitation in her voice.

She reached out, placing her hand on my cheek. “I want you to be careful. You’ve both grown up since high school, so maybe you can make it work this time. I just don’t want to see you get hurt again. I still remember the last time—you walking through the front door in tears. You were inconsolable. It took your father and me hours to get the full story out of you.”

I’d been so young and inexperienced back then. And the breakup had been so abrupt. But this time, Aiden and I were old enough not to hurt each other like that. The circumstances were completely different. “It’ll be okay,” I told my mother. “Like you’ve said, we’ve both grown up since then. That won’t happen this time.”

But even as I said it, a wriggling unease settled in my gut.

Aiden and I still hadn’t talked about why our relationship ended in the first place. Were we ever going to clear the air, or were we just going to let it hang like a cloud over this…whatever it was between us? And for that matter, what was there between us? Were we really together? Or did he consider this a fling? I thought back to the way he’d kissed me, the way he’d touched me, like I was something to be protected. You didn’t bother protecting the things you didn’t intend to keep…right?

But even if this did mean something to him, until I knew the reason why he’d ended our relationship so abruptly in high school, how could I be sure it wouldn’t happen again?