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“Come on, Grams. I know you’re really into him. And he’s into you.” She nudged her grandmother. “You should see your face. You’re blushing.”
Nancy put her hands on her burning cheeks. “It’s been years since I blushed.” She gave Mack a naughty look. “And years since I did other things.”
Mack felt a flash of panic.
Teasing was one thing, but this—“It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t need the details.”
“Good, because I have no intention of giving you details.” Her grandmother seemed almost playful and Mack decided it was definitely time to move the subject away from Ben.
“What are you going to do about Alice?”
“I’m going to talk to her. It’s time we were honest. Secrets are like walls. They stop you getting close. If our friendship is going to endure and be something worth having, we need to break down those walls.”
Mack pulled a face. “That’s going to be awkward.”
“Life is full of awkward, but this thing with Alice is like having a stone in my shoe. I can keep walking, but I know it’s there. We can’t move forward comfortably until it’s out in the open, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m hoping we can start over. That’s all you can do, isn’t it? Give up or start over, and we Stewarts aren’t good at giving up.”
“That’s brave. And forgiving.” Mack felt something else was needed. Something grown-up and worthy of the conversation they’d been having. “I guess love is complicated.” She couldn’t even imagine it, but judging how so many adults made crazy decisions she had to believe it was true.
“It is complicated.”
Mack relaxed. It was good to know that in the world of adult conversations, she wasn’t a complete failure. “But it must be worth it, or people wouldn’t keep doing it, right?”
“I suppose so.”
Mack wondered if her grandmother was in love with Ben. “Do you think Mom is in love with Scott?”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“Because that would be awkward, too. Also, I’ve probably already messed it up.” Now that the shock had faded, Mack wished she could turn the clock back and react differently. Why did her feelings always explode out of her? She wished there was a pause button she could press to give herself time to think before reacting. “Scott is probably relieved I’m not his responsibility. After the way I yelled at him he’s probably already planning his next sailing trip round the world to get away from me.”
Although he was her biological father, he wasn’t really tied to her in any way, was he?
He’d walked away once before. He could walk away again.
And after she’d been so rude, he probably would.
She thought about the sailing lessons and about Captain and the fun of helping out in the boatyard. She thought about how Scott had encouraged her to talk about Ed even though it must have been hard for him and how patient he’d been with her.
Her heart started to pound.
Tears stung her eyes. “She’s going to tell him they can’t be together because of me, isn’t she?”
“Is that what you’d want?”
“No! I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. It’s not like it’s my choice.” She didn’t want to forget Ed, but nor did she want Scott to sail out of her life.
“That’s where you’re wrong. You’ve made excellent choices since you’ve been here. You settled into a new school, and you’ve grabbed opportunities that came your way. You joined the Coding Club. Because of that you found yourself some friends, a new passion, maybe even a future career.”
She hadn’t thought of it like that.
“I guess some things have turned out okay.”
“How about I pour us both some lemonade?” Nancy reached out a hand and pulled Mack to her feet. “We can sit outside in the garden.”
Mack was sitting in the garden with delicious lemonade and one of Jenna’s cookies when her mother arrived home.
The guilt returned with a rush.
