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“Let’s hope,” I said.
“I just talked to Mom. She wants us to bring Willa to dinner on Sunday,” he said.
“Sure,” she said. “Quentin’s house is beautiful, and I’ll probably be more comfortable this time.”
“Actually, it’s at their house this time. Merry is getting close to the baby being born, and nobody wants to get in her way,” Darren said.
I stopped to think about this for a second. It was definitely intimidating thinking about going to Minnie and Gus’s house for dinner. Gus and I were in a great place. He was kind to me and never made me feel like any less than he’d ever seen me. The same couldn’t be said about Minnie. Not that she was mean or judgmental in any way. In fact, she was polite and kind to me. But it was not the same type of kindness she’d shown before she found out about Willa. It was like there was a wall between us, something preventing us from getting closer. I didn’t want it to feel that way. I knew how close Darren’s family was, and I couldn’t stand the thought of creating any type of tension or putting a wedge between him and his parents.
I thought more about going over to their house. Maybe this was the perfect opportunity. I would like to see where he grew up and get some more insight into who he was and what his life was like before I met him. And maybe this would be a chance for me to clear the air a bit with Minnie. A little bit of time had passed, and we would be in her home environment, so maybe she would be more willing to warm up to me this time. It was possible. It was also possible she would never forgive me. I hated that thought and didn’t want to face the possibility, but I needed to do whatever I could to keep it from happening.
“Okay,” I told him. “That sounds like fun. Is there something I could bring?”
He shrugged. “Anything, I guess. Probably not anything baked, though. Mom has been in bakery mode recently, and there’s no telling what she’ll have made. Maybe some of that awesome pasta salad you have for lunch sometimes.”
“I’ll ask Pam for the recipe. I probably should be making it for myself, anyway. She doesn’t need to be making me lunch all the time,” I said.
“She likes taking care of you,” Darren pointed out. “I don’t think she’d want you to take that away from her.”
It made my heart feel warm to hear him talk about Pam like that. I worried he wouldn’t be able to get comfortable with the idea of her as an ongoing part of our lives. He’d agreed to have Pam watch Willa that night and said he appreciated her, but there was a part of me that still worried he would try to phase her out. Now I knew he saw how valuable she was and would want her to be a part of our daughter’s life as much as I did.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I told him. “Get this bowling alley smell off me.”
“I’ll come with you,” he said. I gave him a look, and he held up his hands in mock innocence. “Purely for the sake of water conservation.”
“Of course. I’ve always known how important the cause of water conservation is to you,” I told him.
“It all starts with one drop,” he said.
I laughed and we headed down the hallway. After a few steps, a thought jumped into my mind, and I turned around. The sharp movement made Darren step back a bit, and he looked at me questioningly.
“Something you said before, it’s bothering me,” I said.
“What is it?” he asked. “Something I said tonight?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Not tonight. You said it when we were talking about getting the DNA results about Willa. You said when you got the results if you found out I was telling the truth and wasn’t just after your money. I don’t really understand why you would say that.”
Darren looked at me incredulously.
“Are you serious?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said nodding. “I mean, I’m not rich. I don’t come from a lot of money or anything, but my family has always done fine. And now I work two jobs, the one at the garage and freelance working on mechanic manuals. So, I’m doing okay for myself. Willa and I always have what we need. So, it’s not that. Plus, I guess, I figured your parents were wealthy because they started the company, and Quentin obviously has money because he owns it now and has built it up. But I never really thought about you in those terms so much.”
Darren stared at me for a second before he started laughing. The sound burst out of him and kept coming until he had to reach out and hold himself up on the wall beside us. I was not amused by the reaction.
