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“Don’t look so surprised.” I shake my head and pop one of the pinwheels into my mouth. “You know I’m a big boy now, and I like girls.”
“I know that, honey,” Mom says with a chuckle. “But you’ve never liked a girl enough to mention her to me.”
“I guess there hasn’t been anyone worth mentioning until now.” I shrug my shoulders, but my mom isn’t about to let me drop the conversation that easily.
“Tell me about this girl.”
I sigh, rubbing the ache out of my temples. For all I know, my mother remembers Rowan Bates just as vividly I do from high school, and absolutely none of it’s good. I love my mother; she’s always been the one person to turn to for support and unconditional love.
But she had no idea about the bullying. Dereck, Bryce, and I … well, we were vicious. Only now can I look my past in the face and own up to that.
“We know her from school,” I say with a small shrug. “High school. Rowan Bates.”
“Rowan.” Mom taps her chin thoughtfully, brow furrowing again. “Rowan … Row. Thick red hair and glasses, right?”
“Right.”
“I didn’t realize you had a thing for her,” Mom says, thanking the server as she puts our food down on the table. “I never heard you boys talk about her much. Are you all friends with her?”
“She’s different now,” I say, biting into a chicken taco. “She really grew into herself.”
“Is that the only reason you like her now?” Mom asks, and I can hear the mild disappointment in her voice.
“I don’t know if it is or not, Mom, but that doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Does she remember you from school?”
“Oh, yes. She remembers us very, very well.”
Mom eyes me across the table, dry lips pursed into a thin line. She doesn’t look pleased.
“What about Dereck and Bryce? Do they know who you like?”
“Yeah, well, that’s kind of the problem.” I shake my head and lean back in the booth seat, jaw clenching automatically. Mom scans my face with dark eyes, reading me like the open book I’ve always been to her.
“Uh-oh,” she says. “Don’t tell me all three of you are smitten with one girl.”
I shrug, cracking my knuckles. “That could be a possibility.”
“Matt, is she worth losing your friends over?” Mom asks, sporting her serious face. When we were kids, Mom’s serious face was enough to crack even the most stubborn of liars. How does that phrase go? I’m not mad, just disappointed.
Yeah, right.
“No one is going to lose anyone,” I say.
“Well, okay,” Mom says, shaking her head as the bell over the door rings for a new customer. “As long as she doesn’t break your heart.”
I shake my head no and look up automatically towards the door where a guy is coming in, shrugging off his jacket. He’s got ugly glasses and shaggy blond hair and I recognize him at once. It’s Jason, Rowan’s Whatever-He-Is, and right behind him is the Queen of the Hour herself.
“Fuck.”
“Matthew James, don’t use that language around me.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
Following my eyes, Mom turns around in her seat to check out what I’m staring at. When Rowan steps out from behind Jason, it takes her a minute, but I know she recognizes her.
“Is that her?” Mom whispers, swiveling her head back in my direction. She’s whispering now like we’re in some undercover op and Rowan is our target. “You’re right,” she hisses. “She really grew into herself, didn’t she?”
