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“Gigi…” Mom glares at me. “The truth.”
“What, you don’t believe I want to help you?” I make puppy eyes. “Please.”
“Oh God.” Mom says, and her gaze softens. “Since you were a baby you’ve had me wrapped around your finger, missy. You can go, sure. But I still want to know why.”
I square my shoulders. “Because you were right, I remember Becky Lowe. I knew her. And I knew Jarett. I want to see them.”
“Honey…” Her expression twists a little. “She won’t recognize you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She looks like she wants to say more, but thinks twice about it and stops herself.
That’s good. I don’t even know what my arguments are. Don’t know what I expect. But this is my clue, my only real clue so far, and I’ll follow it, see where it takes me.
“Let me help you with the bags,” she says finally, and I walk out with her as if in a dream. I ask for an Uber, and it’s there in three minutes, not giving me time to gather my thoughts or question myself any more.
A good thing, as it’s all kinda crazy. Going off to deliver a cake to Jarett’s adopted mom who won’t even know me.
What do I expect to find?
The Uber arrives, and I climb inside, Mom passing me the bags and pressing a piece of paper in my hand.
“The names and addresses,” she says. “Good luck.”
Maybe she senses what’s going on inside me better than I do, that this is more than passing curiosity, or a whim. That this is important to me.
Then we drive away, and I’m alone and free to finally sit back and marvel at the things I’d do when it comes to Jarett. Just for a chance to find out more about him and what makes him tick, a chance to understand him and figure out why I feel the way I do about him.
To prove I’m not so crazy to still want him after all.
Mom has baked five cakes total. I deliver them all, but deliberately leave Jarett’s mom for last.
You won’t find out anything else, I tell myself again. What else is there to find anyway? So his mom is sick. What does it change, huh?
Holding on to the cake, the coffee cake Becky Lowe loves—does she remember that, I wonder?—and sit still and tense in the backseat of the Uber as we roll toward the nursing home. It’s starting to rain outside, a drizzle and wind, and heavy dark clouds that promise more water.
I’ll just drop off the cake and go home, crawl under my favorite fluffy blanket on the sofa and watch something on TV. Something funny, to take my mind off my heart’s troubles. Maybe a rerun of Teen Wolf, or a new episode of Shadowhunters. Something with hot guys running about, preferably shirtless, to take my mind off a specific real-life guy who might as well be a ghost, for all I know about him.
A very sexy ghost, to be sure, with a very solid—
God, forget it. Better get this over with and head back home, to my familiar routines, my brother and my mom and all the good things in life. Maybe hit the books for my classes, read a good book, listen to the new playlist Merc made me instead of chasing after bad boys, no matter how handsome.
I’m so frigging nervous.
The Uber drops me off right outside the entrance, for which I’m grateful as the rain has grown stronger, pelting down on us. I quickly step inside and drip my way to the front desk, equally grateful for my favorite red waterproof jacket.
“Hi,” I tell the receptionist, a pretty woman with a bob of dark hair. “I have a cake for Mrs. Becky Lowe? From Maggie Watson. I’m the delivery girl today.”
Shut up, Gigi.
Nerves. No reason for nerves. Come on.
“You can leave the cake here with me,” the girl says. “Or did you want to visit Mrs. Lowe?”
?
?I…I’m not sure.” Shit. For some reason, it feels like cheating, visiting a person I remember when she wouldn’t remember me. “It’s okay. I’ll leave it here. You’ll take it to her?”
