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“Okay,” I finally said.
“Really?”
I nodded. “I need to run things by Honey for production and move some meetings around. But yes. Yes, I’ll go to LA with you.”
Campbell pulled me tight against him and kissed me as if he’d never imagined I’d say yes to this.
“Will we be…a couple in LA?”
“If you want. I think we should get English in the same room with my music publicist, Barbara, and see what they think about it all.”
I nodded. That sounded like a lot.
“But we don’t have to decide anything before we get there. There’s already been a few press pieces about you recording the band. So, it won’t be strange for you to travel with us.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. Good. I’m excited.”
“Me too.”
But if I was going to LA with the potential that my relationship might be public with Campbell, then I needed to tell one more person before that. The last person I wanted to talk to.
My mom.
Pamela had been working at the same doctor’s office for almost her entire career. I’d called ahead to speak with her secretary, Lacey, about fitting me in. There was no other way to see her during business hours, and I wasn’t willing to go home to have this conversation. I knew too well what it would be like there.
“Blaire,” Lacey said with a smile when I walked in. “It’s good to see you, sweetie. It’s been a while.”
It had been at least a year since I’d been at the office. It would have been longer if I could have helped it.
“Good to see you, Lacey.”
“She’s ready. If you want to head inside.”
I nodded and pushed into my mother’s office. It looked like a generic therapist’s office with seats and a lounge for people to talk to her, and she had a desk, plus actual filing for her records. The business had gone digital, but she still swore by paper and handed it all off to Lacey to type up later.
“Hi,” I said as I walked inside.
My mom looked up in surprise. “Marie, I didn’t know you were going to be here. I have a client.”
“I’m the client,” I told her.
Pamela blinked at that. “Oh? You’ve come for a session.”
“No,” I said quickly. “Just to talk.”
“Ah, couldn’t we have done that out of business hours?”
We could have, but I refused to go home. Plus, there, I’d have had to deal with Hal, too.
“I thought this would be better.”
“All right,” she said, folding up the records she had been working on and lacing her fingers together in front of her. “What can I help you with?”
I swallowed and took a seat. “I don’t have a problem. I just wanted to tell you something.”
“Oh?”
“I didn’t want you to hear about it from someone else. I thought it would be best from me.”
“Sit up straight, Marie. Tell me what this is about.”
I straightened automatically. It felt like a grape was lodged in my throat. I needed to choke it down, so I could breathe these words to my mother. On a good day, I didn’t like talking to my mom, and this was hardly going to be good in her book.
“I started dating Campbell again.” I cleared my throat. “Campbell Abbey.”
Whatever she’d thought I was going to tell her, that was not it. Her eyes widened marginally. Then, she clenched her hands tighter together and set her jaw.
“I see,” she said slowly. “Since when?”
“Since the Fourth of July. Sort of,” I tacked on at the end. It was when it’d all started at least.
“Well, on a scale from one to ten, how confident are you in this decision?” She kept steady eye contact for a moment before turning the page on her notebook, as if she was going to take notes.
I ground my teeth together. Of course, she was going to treat this like a patient problem and not reality. I was her daughter, but my problems…my entire life was just a colossal test run for her career. She was so in her own head that she’d never seen what this did to me.
“Mom!” I snapped. “Don’t treat me like one of your patients. I’m your kid.”
“I know, Marie.” She slapped her hand down on her notepad. “The easiest way to assess situations is to use my methods. I don’t want to elicit an emotional response about this. I want to be practical.”
“Screw practical. Can you even be emotional?”
Pamela stared back at me, stunned. “Of course I am emotional. Why would you ask me something like that?”
“Because you don’t have emotions.”
“Just because I am not ruled by them does not mean that I do not have them. You should know that very well, Marie. You play by the same rules.”
I glared back at her. I hated that she was right. I hid so much of what I was feeling from others. My friends still didn’t know everything that had happened with Campbell, and I’d only told them the bare minimum when I finally confessed to it. Hell, Campbell only knew the half of it. It was a defense mechanism, and I’d learned it from my mom.
