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Caleb waved a deck of cards at her, then started to shuffle them. “I asked you three times if you wanted to play continental rummy?”
“Cut her some slack,” Parker said. “She’s easily distracted by her girlfriend.”
Cassie didn’t mean to squeak, but she definitely did. Calebstared at Parker, and then at her, and then toward the house. Back to Parker.
“What?”
“She’s dating my mom.”
The cards shot out of Caleb’s hands. Acacia had been about to get into the pool, but she took a step toward Cassie, like she was going to need to run interference. Cassie backed up.
“Right,” she said. “Well. I’m—uh—is anyone else thirsty? I’m going to get a drink. Anyone need anything?”
“‘Thirsty’ is definitely the word I’d use,” Parker said, not looking up from her magazine.
Cassie fled instead of waiting for the others’ answers.
She found Erin in the kitchen. Before Erin could say hello, Cassie wrapped her arms around her middle and dropped her forehead onto Erin’s shoulder. “Caleb knows we’re dating.”
Erin sighed. “Of course he does.” She held Cassie gently. “Are you okay with that?”
“I mean, yeah,” Cassie said, her voice muffled against Erin. “It’s obviously part of this whole dating thing. It would’ve just been nice for Parker not to drop that into conversation without warning me.”
Cassie’s head moved with Erin’s shoulder as she shrugged. “That’s Parker, babe,” Erin said. “Besides the fact that she tells Caleb everything, she’s going to make us suffer a bit for lying to her.”
“How do you know she doesn’t hate us?”
One of Erin’s hands found Cassie’s face to tilt her head up, make her look at her.
“If she hated us, she wouldn’t be here,” Erin said. “Her dad lives ten minutes away. She wouldn’t have picked you up this morning if she hated you. She would do a lot worse than make you uncomfortable if she hated you.”
Cassie remembered last semester, remembered weeks going by without ever seeing Parker, and knew Erin was right.
“It still sucks.”
“It does,” Erin agreed. “But… I can do this without worrying about who’s around.”
She kissed Cassie, softly, sweetly, and neither of them looked over their shoulder to see if they’d been caught.
“Okay,” Cassie said. “I guess it’s worth it.”
“You guess?”
Cassie grinned. “Maybe you should do it again to convince me.”
Erin was very convincing.
That night, after Erin barred her from helping clean the kitchen anymore and Acacia disappeared to call Donovan, Cassie knocked on Parker’s bedroom door.
“Come in.”
Cassie opened the door and took a couple steps into the room. Parker was fiddling with things on her dresser, not paying Cassie any attention.
“Parker…”
“Mm-hmm?” She was completely nonchalant.
“Can we like—talk?”
