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“You have makeup on!” I pointed at it. “And lipstick. You havelipstickon.”
“I—”
“You said it’s a movie night. Is this a group thing?”
“Yes. There will be a bunch of people there.”
“That means you like someone in the group. Who do you like?”
“Oh—stop it, Ava. Tell me what happened between you and Zeke—”
“Who is it?”
“Sweethear—”
“Tell me who it is, and I’ll tell you what happened with Zeke.”
She opened her mouth, gaping at me, before sighing and cursing under her breath. She reached for another sip of her beer. “Sophie.”
“Sophi—” I knew Sophie. She was a friend of one of the other ladies in the building. “Sophie’s a woman, Mom.”
She grunted. “I’m well aware, and I like her.” She was eyeing me. She was really eyeing me. “I like her a lot, Ava.”
I held her gaze, and I was quiet for a beat because this was something major. Like uber super-duper major. My mom had never expressed that she was attracted to a woman before. Then again, my mom had never expressed she was interested or attracted to anyone, not even my father now that I was thinking about it. Except Charlie Hunnam. We both shared our delight in him fromSons of Anarchy.
“Mom—” I started, going gentle.
She cursed, wheeling back and staring at me head on. “I like Sophie. That’s it. Since you showed up, I felt it was time to tell you. That’s all I want to say about it.”
“Okay, but—”
“Ava!”
“Mom.” I laid my hand over her arm because thiswasimportant. This was suddenly so extremely and very important and I needed her to hear me say my part.
She stilled but cursed and looked away.
She was two seconds away from letting a tear come out. I knew my mom. I knew the signs.
“I need you to hear me. Just in case you need to hear this. I will always love you—”
“Oh, good God. I know you’ll always love me.” But her voice was a little shaky, and she reached for my hand, entwining our fingers. “Thank you.” She squeezed my hand again. “Thank you.”
I sat there, and there was a whole burst of emotions going on in me.
I had no clue what to do here because this wasn’t about me. This was about her, so… well, screw it. I was going with what felt right to say.
“Mom.”
She groaned. “Ava. Stop. It’s—it’s fine. You can leave it alone.”
“I love you, Mom.”
She looked away but tipped her head up. That meant she was listening to me, listening to every word I was going to say.
“You’re my mother. I feel weird saying ‘’I still love you’ because that means that something might’ve happened where I might not love you and that’llneverhappen. Ever. So instead, I’m going to say that I have always loved you. I have always needed you. I have always depended on you, andnothingwill change that. Nothing. The main thing I care about right now is that I want to know how long you’ve liked her? Because if you’ve had a crush developing on her, I’m a little pissed that I didn’t figure it out before you told me.”
She was smiling and those tears were still there, but she shook her head. “How’d I luck out getting you as a daughter?”
