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However, watching her interacting with her mother was a bit weird for me. It reactivated my protective instincts toward Clem. But since I was kind of a friend to Sylvia, I decided I wasn’t going to take sides.
“Don’t forget,” Sylvia said and looked directly at me. “Dinner. Tomorrow night. At our place.” I lifted a brow in a silent question. I had no idea about this arrangement. She ignored me. “Richard, Ty, and Maddie are coming too. And Adina…,” Sylvia made a dramatic pause but in a funny way, and it showed she had no issues with her ex-husband’s girlfriend. “So no excuses,” Sylvia’s tone was firm and suggested she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
I had no intention of saying no to spending more time around the fun and easy going Clementine. She still had that tendency of closing up in silence from time to time, but the darkness was gone. She looked at peace with herself.
After the news I was going to share another meal with Clem, I decided it was about time I approached her before things start feeling weird between us.
She was in the kitchen with my mom. I could hear them giggling, and I just couldn’t resist the urge to peak. It was obvious she felt at home. She was digging in the cabinets looking for something, her back turned to me. She talked to my mother who was the only one aware I was leaning a shoulder on the wall eyeing them.
“I don’t see a box at all. I checked everywhere. Can we just eat in different dessert plates? I swear the cake is so good, they would eat it from the table.” Clementine started opening the cabinets for a second time and added. “Or I could go home to pick up ours?”
“Or,” I pushed off the wall and approached her. “You could ask someone who lives here to tell you where they are.”
Clementine didn’t freeze with the sound of my voice. She didn’t take a step back when she turned around to face me, and I was pretty close. I could smell her pink grapefruit shampoo from where I was standing.
I loved that smell.
“Move. I know where the plates are.”
She just smiled and made a hand gesture inviting me to help her. I rounded her and opened a cabinet she had already looked into. Twice. I wanted to tease her about it, but mom killed the moment with her not so subtle exit.
“I’ll go check if the others need anything,” she said and winked at me on her way out.
“You don’t actually live here anymore,” Clem taunted me with a grin.
“I suppose that’s true,” I smiled back at her and placed the box on the kitchen island, then opened it. “These need a wash,” I showed her the dusty plates she was looking for.
“Will you keep me company?” she asked and my eyes fell on her lips. I smiled.
She started washing the plates and we fell into the familiar silence between us for a moment. I was glad I didn’t offer her to wash the plates for her. This way I could just stare at her. So, I leaned on the counter and admired her pretty face. The warmth I felt inside my chest was spreading all over my body. Then she looked at me with a wicked grin. She was up to something.
“I went on a second date with Matt Pearson,” she said. “He told me he stood me up because of you, just like I thought.”
“Oh yeah?” I smirked and took a step closer to her. If the fact that I was invading her personal space did anything to her, she didn’t show it at all. “And how was it?”
“You were totally right. We weren’t a good fit.”
“I bet I was right about the others too,” I teased. She paused and then looked me straight in the eye.
“I bet you were,” she bit her lower lip suppressing a smile. I reached and released it like I always did. I felt her hot breath on my finger.
“You are flirting with me, nemesis.”
I saw her blissfully closing her eyes for a moment when I used her nickname. Then she opened them, cocked her head sideways, and thought about it for a few seconds.
“I suppose that’s true.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Clementine
I looked at my reflection in the French windows. We were at Chase and Amy’s for the annual New Year’s Eve party their parents were throwing. I envied my mother for her nonchalance. She waltzed in there like it was nothing. Like the man she made out with five years ago wasn’t here with his wife. Like his wife wasn’t our hostess for the evening. I managed to enter the house only because the twins weren’t here.
I had no one else to spend New Year’s with. Hannah got an invitation for some party and went back to Boston. So I was stuck with the married couples and the children who weren’t old enough to attend a party on their own.
Dressed in my shirt plaid dress in red and black, I looked like my mother always intended me to. I was pretty, presentable. I looked like a grown-up and not like a deranged teen with anger issues. And I liked it.
I spent the last half an hour observing Troy trying to impress a girl, and I had to ask myself if Lucas and I looked so ridiculous when we were putting all our efforts into the task of hiding our feelings.
