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That name vaguely rings a bell, although I can’t pin down from where.
“Look, it isn’t what you think.”
“How can it not be what I think? How could you get mated without telling us? You didn’t even tell us you weredatinganyone. Your poor mother didn’t get to meet her daughter-in-law before you went and—”
“I’m not actually mated,” I sigh.
“—could be the mother of my future grandchildren, and I’ve never even—Wait. What?”
“I’mnotmated,” I repeat more firmly.
“Then why is the entire hospital apparently buzzing about you and some woman you’ve been secretly seeing?”
I scrub a hand down my face. “It’s complicated.”
“You think you got all those brains from your father?” She snorts. “Try me.”
“Fuck,” I groan.
“Language.”
“It’s the board,” I say defeatedly. “They found out.”
She immediately discerns my meaning. “Oh no. How? You’ve been so careful.”
“An ‘anonymous tip,’ apparently. It’s utter bullshit.”
“Language,” she stresses. “Were you reprimanded?”
“Well...”
“My goodness,” she huffs. “After all that work you’ve done. And the Albuquerque job is on the line! Is that going to be affected now that you—”
“I didn’t get any formal sort of reprimand,” I tell her. “I didn’t get anything more than a slap on the wrist, really.” I hesitate a moment, knowing that I’m about to open a can of worms. “It was all thanks to Mackenzie.”
“Mackenzie?”
“The, ah, mate you heard about.”
“But you said you weren’t actually mated.”
“I’m not.”
“But there’s a woman named Mackenzie.”
“There is.”
“And you’re not mated?”
“No.”
“But people think you are.”
“Correct.”
My mother is quiet for a moment, and I feel a little like a boy again, waiting for her to yell at me for breaking her favorite vase.
“Tell me everything,” she says calmly.
