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"I've seen the way he looks at you." She smiled knowingly. "You could do worse than those three. If you can keep them in line. Leo is enough for me."
"That's good to know, because he doesn't seem like the sharing type," I said. "Except his money. He seems happy to spend that on people he cares about."
"He's very generous," Mum said. "But he's also very careful about where he invests his money. He's the kind of man who only bets on a sure thing. Like his son."
I paused my brushing for a moment. "You think my gym is a sure thing?"
"With you in charge of it, how could it not be?" she said in a way only a mother could. With faith that I'd succeed, even if that faith wasn't based on anything more than maternal love.
"Right." I swiped the brush through her hair a couple more times before I put it aside. "Do you have any idea how you want your hair for the wedding?"
In place of any kind of bachelorette party, she suggested a mother-daughter bonding evening, involving doing each other's make-up and hair and eating ice cream while watching a romcom. I interpreted that as practice for her wedding hair and make up, but it was nice to spend some time with her.
"I was thinking I could just put it up in a ponytail." She swept her hair back and looked at herself this way and that in the mirror.
I didn't know who she was trying to kid, because she wasn't kidding me. My mother wouldn't leave the house with a hairdo so simple, much less get married like that.
"How about I try a couple of things?" I suggested.
She lowered her hands and let her hair tumble to her shoulders. "You always were better at doing my hair than I was, so have at it."
I started to braid her hair from the front, drawing in pieces from the sides.
"So what does Leo invest in?" I asked.
Her body stiffened just slightly. "All sorts of things."
"Like what?" She should know that giving me a vague answer would only pique my boundless curiosity.
"Like transport and logistics. Things like that." That was only slightly less vague.
"What does he transport?" I pressed. "Ice cream? Chocolate? Dead bodies?"
I said the last without thinking, but the moment I did, memories of that night crashed back into my brain, very much unwelcome and no less terrible than they were at the time.
I was so caught up in them, I almost missed my mother's awkward laugh.
"Dead bodies? You always did have a good imagination." There was something in her tone that put me on edge.
It's my imagination, I told myself. I was jumping at shadows because I was thinking about what I saw. This might be a good chance to tell my mother about it, but something stopped me from saying the words. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but they were stuck in my throat.
I realised I'd stopped braiding. I had to check to see which side I needed to take hair from next before I kept going.
"Someone needs to transport dead bodies," I said. "As much as they need to transport ice cream and chocolate."
"I suppose so," she said. "That looks nice, but I'm not sure that's what I want."
It took me a moment to realise she was referring to her hair.
"Oh." I stopped mid-braid and started to tease the hair loose again. "What about a bun?"
"What about curls all over?" She swept her hands through the ends of her hair and lifted them up before dropping them again. "I have a curling iron in the drawer over there." She gestured with a wave of her fingers.
Curls would take ages, but itwasfor her wedding. I headed over to the drawer and pulled out the iron. I plugged it into the wall and waited for it to heat up.
"You never told me how you and Leo met." I held the iron near my hand and decided it was hot enough. I gripped a section of hair between my thumb and forefinger and fed it through before twisting the iron and waiting for the hair to curl around it.
"Didn't I?" She frowned at her reflection. "We met through mutual friends. More… business associates really. Reuben and Caleb Brantley. I was doing some work for them and Leo was doing some business with them. We had a few business meetings and then a few dates. The rest is history."
