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“Hmmm.” My mom opens a bottle ofTanqueraygin and shoots me a look. “Olives, dear?”
I don’t answer her, and with my hand wrapped around Charlotte’s forearm, I haul her into the kitchen. Once we are safely out of earshot, I reach for her. “Baby.” It’s as if that simple word causes her to break down because the tears are streaming down her cheeks.
“She hates me. Which I somewhat expected but…that?” She points at the doorway. I wrap her in my arms and push her face into my chest.
“Shhh, she doesn’t hate you. She doesn’t know you and my mother is just…”How do I even put her into words?“She hates any sign of scandal.”
“She thinks I’m all wrong for you.” She pulls back, her eyes teary and red, her skin slightly blotchy but she’s still as radiant as ever.
“Good thing she doesn’t get a say in the matter then.” I kiss her lips gently, sliding my tongue between them in an effort to calm her.
“Is she always…” she starts. “Has she always been like that?” I can hear the question she’s really trying to ask.Does she treat you like that?
“As long as I can remember.”Yes,I answer her unspoken question.
Empathy flashes in her eyes, and then she’s back in my arms, wrapping hers around me and pressing a kiss just over my heart. “I’m sorry.”
I lift her chin upwards towards me and allow my lips to hover over hers. “I love you,” I tell her just before I press my lips to hers. “And I’m sorry for what she said to you.” I press my forehead to hers.
Her eyes flutter closed and I take a minute to just enjoy the stillness between us, ignoring the fact that my parents are one room over, probably preparing for round two with my fiancée.
A throat being cleared penetrates our bubble and I turn around to see my mother holding her gin martini at the stem of her glass. “Olives? Also, Tanqueray over Hendrick’s?” She wrinkles her nose. “Not my first choice for entertaining. Did you not read the book I gave you for the drinks that should always be on hand?” She moves towards my cabinet and opens it, in search of the olives I know are not in there.
“Mother I don’t have any olives. And I’m sure you have Hendrick’s athome.”
“A gin martini without olives?” She puts a hand across her chest in the most dramatic fashion, and had it been anyone else on the face of the Earth, I would think they’re kidding.But no, my mother is definitely serious.“I might as well drink this out of one of those red plastic cups.” She moves out of the kitchen without another word. Charlotte is staring after her, mouth slightly open in shock. She looks at me and then back to the door and then back to me again.
“I have no words,” she whispers. “Literally not even one.”
“I’ve been trying to come up with the words for years.” I follow her gaze. “They fail me every time.”
I walk out of the kitchen, leaving Charley alone and shoot my mother a look. “Can you not?”
“What?” she asks as if she’s clueless to her calculated comments.
“Watch your tone with her,Diana,I mean it,” I growl, knowing she hates it when I call her by her first name. “I am not J.R., you will address me as the woman that spent fourteen hours in labor bringing you into this world,”she would say.
And then the next eighteen years making me wish you hadn’t.
“William, what do you even know about this girl, really? I am just trying to understand—”
I snort. “No, you’re not. You’re using the fact that you’re my mother to stomp all over her, when you know Charlotte does ultimately want your approval. And I won’t have it.Ever.But you are damn sure not going to insult the woman I love under my roof.”
She huffs. “She shouldn’t be so sensitive.”
“I am warning you,Mother. Don’t make me do it again.” I walk by her, daring her to walk into the kitchen to bother the woman who is probably still shaking like a leaf.
I move into the living room and my father immediately drops his phone from his ear, a hushed “I’ll call you later,” falls from his lips and I resist the urge to chuckle.
“Really? Yourwifeis in the other room.” I don’t even try to hide my disgust and disapproval.
“Keep your voice down,” he says half-heartedly, as if my mother finding out that he was talking towhoeverdidn’t concern him. “I have plans for dinner, so let’s get started, shall we?” I frown, not because I think he’s having dinner with a woman, but because I remember what Charlotte said about them having dinner plans with Drew.
It’s probably for the best anyway, my mind attempts to rationalize in an attempt to hide the hurt.
“Why did you even bring her here?”
“She is your mother, and she’s concerned.”
