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“I think I do.” He cleared his throat. “What should I expect tonight? The third degree?”
“Probably,” I admitted with a grimace. “I’ve never brought anyone back to meet them before.”
He stilled at that. “Before or after?”
“That’s usually what ‘never’ means,” I replied wryly.
“Why don’t you get on with them?”
“We used to be close, then after, things changed.”
“Why?”
“Mom didn’t… She believed me, don’t get me wrong. She just expected me to get on with things, like nothing had happened at all. She couldn’t understand why I was depressed and distraught. And when I used to flinch, she said it put her on edge and made it so she couldn’t relax.” I pursed my lips at the memory of that conversation. Yeah, it hadn’t been a barrel of laughs. “I moved out in the end.”
“You were still living at home?”
“Uhhuh. Hence the new digs.”
He wrinkled his nose, and I had to stifle a laugh. He’d made it known that he didn’t like my apartment building.
“I’d have preferred for you to stay with your folks; even if it did put you an hour’s commute away.”
My lips twitched. “Well, I couldn’t stand it in the end. I had to get out. It was liberating in itself just to be able to be sad without her judging me.”
“Did she just expect you to be happy after what had happened?”
“I don’t know. I think, in her mind, she thought I needed to get over it for my own sake. ‘There’s no point crying over spilled milk’, has to be one of her favorite mottos. She wanted me to move on, and I couldn’t. A part of me was stuck on that night, like a broken record, I guess.”
He made a low sound in his throat, but it was Mackenzie who mumbled, “That stinks.”
I blinked, but didn’t refute his comment.
“I mean, I don’t know what happened on ‘this night’ you’re talking about, but it stinks that she wasn’t willing to support you. I’m sorry, Jessica.”
“You don’t have to be, Mackenzie. But thank you.” I leaned forward, even though it meant moving away from Max’s delicious embrace, and patted him on the shoulder.
“I’m really not looking forward to meeting them now.”
Max’s low grumble had me snorting. “You’ll like my dad. He loves football. Especially college football. He says it’s where they sort the wheat from the chaff.”
“Isn’t that what the NFL draught is about?” he retorted, amused.
I shrugged. “It’s just what he always says.”
“Was he like your mom?”
“No, but we’ve never been that close. In his defense, he works a lot. My mom doesn’t, so he’s the breadwinner. I never really got a chance to be close to him.”
He nodded, but I knew he was feigning understanding. Even though Max’s view of the world was skewed, certain things had priorities. Things like family. Even if he worked twenty hours a day, I knew he’d make time for his children. He was like that.
So absent minded in some ways, and yet, so aware and smart in others.
“Is that why you have the debts? They couldn’t afford to help you pay?”
I whistled out a breath. “They’re huge debts. His legal team was lavish, they cost him a lot, and ultimately the costs got put on me since he won.”
I’d probably still be paying them until I was near retirement; that and my student loans. Great.
