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“You sure have laughed a lot since I first told you about this trip,” Lainey noted.

“That’s because there’s been a lot to laugh about.” He placed her two bags on the light-pink upholstered bench at the end of her bed, and she snagged her cosmetics bag from him.

“I have to freshen up before seeing Mom. I don’t need to hear any of her guff.”

“Lainey, you look great.” Mateo looked her up and down. He’d been surprised when he’d picked her up this morning and she’d been wearing white slacks, an orange linen top, and orange sandals. He figured that when you flew somewhere, you wore something comfortable, like jeans and a t-shirt. It’d been hot, and he knew it was going to be even hotter in Charleston, so he’d been wearing his cargo shorts and a white t-shirt, but taking a cue from her, he realized he’d better change. He’d grabbed his suitcase from his car and brought it into Lainey’s place, then put on slacks and a button-down shirt with a pair of loafers.

Now, from the open door of the bedroom’s connected bathroom, he watched as Lainey looked over her make-up and hair, and then turned around to check the back of her hair. In all the time he’d known her, he’d never seen her this worked up about her appearance.

“How are the back of my slacks? Are they very wrinkled from the plane? Should I change?”

“You look fine,” he assured her. “As a matter of fact, you look great.”

She bit her bottom lip.

He took three steps into the bathroom and pulled her into his arms and nibbled her bottom lip into his mouth.

“What?—”

“I told you, the next time you bite your lip like that, I’m going to do it for you. Those are my lips to torture.”

She melted into his arms, and he kissed her properly. He stroked his hand up and down her back until he felt all the tension flow out of her body. He pulled away, and she looked up at him.

“Hiya, sugar.” She smiled, her eyes hazy.

“Hi.” He smiled back. “Are you doing better?”

“Much.” She reached up and wiped her thumb over his lip. Must have been lipstick she was wiping off. He didn’t really give a shit. She could have asked him to put on scarlet lipstick to meet her mom, and he would have gladly done it.

“We’ve been summoned to the blue room, and I have my head on straight again. Thank you.”

“It was definitely my pleasure.”

Mateo was pleased that Lainey was still relaxed when they entered a room that was most definitely blue. Were those actual peacock feathers in that vase?

He turned his attention to the only person in the room, and she looked just like Lainey would in forty years, if Lainey decided to eat a constant diet of lemons.

“MacLaine, you were told to greet me as soon as you arrived.”

Lainey’s Southern accent was like warm honey that dripped over Mateo, all sweet and warm. Mrs. Simpson’s accent had an almost fake feel. It was as if she was stretching out every syllable, forcing people to listen to her longer. Bottom line, it was grating.

“I wanted to freshen up before seeing you, Mother.” Lainey went over to the blue armchair where her mother was sitting and gave her an air kiss on both cheeks. Mateo had seen air kisses before, but certainly not between a mother and daughter.

Lainey moved back toward Mateo and waved toward a couch that was diagonal to her mother’s chair and they sat down.

“MacLaine, persimmon is not a pleasant shade for you. It makes you look sallow. Please tell me you are not wearing other clothes this color while you are here. And really, what were you thinking wearing white slacks? A dark color would be so much more slimming.”

Is this woman for real? She has all the motherly instincts of a black widow, and they eat their young!

“Mother, I’d like to introduce you to my boyfriend, Matt Agular.”

“Hello, Matthew. My daughter has not told me much about you, other than that you are a scientist. That sounds promising. Tell me more about yourself.”

Mateo stuck to his cover story, which was an amalgamation of his brother and mother. “I was born in Argentina. My mother got her PhD in chemistry and authored a white paper that got her recruited by the DuPont Corporation when I was four years old and my brother was eight years old. We moved here. I followed in her footsteps.”

“So, you work for DuPont?”

“No, I work for a pharmaceutical company in Baltimore.”