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“You can’t promise someone is going to act like you want them to act.”
He turned his back to the kitchen and lowered his voice. “I can expect the only real mom I’ve known to think I have a brain in my head, and she doesn’t have to guard what she says around my girlfriend. That was disrespect to you, but it was also disrespectto me.”
He had a point there.
I got closer to him. “I haven’t exactly engendered her trust, Hale.”
“So she’s going to claim space that is now yours, freeze you out, treat you like that in front of me, your friends, whilewe’rehosting?”
Suddenly, I couldn’t speak.
I’d been in LA a day. I’d spent one night in his house.
And now his kitchen was “mine” andwewere hosting?
Truth, I was his girlfriend. And flashing to a different scenario, I’d spent so much time with him at his apartment in New York, even if I didn’t cook, if Genny came over and claimed that kitchen, I’d be miffed. I might have only toasted a bagel for Hale there, but he’d cooked for me while I kept him company. Made my coffee. We did the dishes together.
He was right.
I was the woman in his life, so even though his space was his space, and Genny had been around a whole lot longer, in that pecking order, it was mine before it was Genny’s, and it didn’t matter if that space was on the east coast or the west coast or how much time I’d spent in it.
She was out of line.
Even so, I still got where she was coming from, and he needed to give both of us some breathing room to sort it out.
If I had a man in my life who I loved who lived the life Hale lived and had the trust issues he had, and I was Genny, I’d be overprotective too.
I opened my mouth, but sadly, Genny’s voice was rising, and we heard her say, “She can’t evencook.”
Carole, Felicity and Zoey’s eyes, all in varieties of the shape ofnarrow, shot to me.
Chuck muttered, “I’m just gonna go out on the balcony,” and then he slipped onto the balcony.
Hale looked ready to blow.
“Sorry,” a man’s voice came from the direction of the front door.
We all looked, and Hudson was standing there, attention to Hale, an alert but impassive expression on his face.
Now, both Fliss and Carole needed to look over Hudson (and Rocco).
I mean both of those guys…
Hudson got close to Hale and murmured. “There’s someone here. I’ve asked her to leave. She refuses to go. I need to know what you want me to do. It’s your mom.”
I felt my eyes get big right before I turned them to Hale, who didn’t have big eyes.
If he looked ready to blow before, he was Mount Vesuvius now, and Samantha Wheeler was Pompeii.
Without a word, he made a move to the front door, but I caught his hand.
He stopped and looked back at me.
“Take a breath, honey,” I advised.
“Fuck that,” he bit off, gently pulling from my hold, then stalking across his living room.
He didn’t slam the door, only because Hudson was trailing him.
