Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Waking up with Bree was my happy place. She was grumpy from the second she opened her eyes, but it was adorable.
We’d spent the night at her house, for a change.
Mostly, we stayed at mine because Sylvia was at her house and could be a distraction.
Bree said her mother had spent the last three nights out somewhere, however, so it was probably safe.
Unfortunately, this morning, Sylvia barreled in the bedroom to wake both of us, and she looked … well, manic was the only word I could come up with.
“Hey,” I said, confused.
I jerked the covers up my chest to cover myself. Fortunately, I’d remembered to pull on my boxer shorts before falling asleep the night before. Bree was another story. She’d only bothered with her panties before passing out.
“He’s ghosting me!” Sylvia said, frantic.
I dragged a hand through my hair, debating what I was supposed to say, then glanced over at Bree as she stirred.
Her hair was a mess, like birds were living in it, and her naked face was full of frowns.
She’d spent twenty minutes in the bathroom before bed, the previous evening, washing and moisturizing.
Sometimes she brought her stuff to my house, but when she forgot, she just splashed her face with water, which didn’t remove all the eye makeup.
I’d told her she could keep stuff in my bathroom, but she’d refrained as of yet.
I didn’t dwell on why that bothered me so much, because then I would have to admit it meant she wasn’t fully committed. That was the opposite of what I wanted.
“What are you doing?” Bree complained, shifting under the covers. She kept the blanket over her chest and glared at Sylvia. “What did we talk about?”
Bree’s tone would have made me shrink. Sylvia either didn’t have self-preservation skills or didn’t care.
“He’s ghosting me,” she repeated. “He’s not returning my calls.”
Bree didn’t look bothered. Well, other than by the fact that her mother had walked into her bedroom without knocking. I, on the other hand, felt the need to fix whatever this was.
“Who isn’t returning your calls?”
“Your father.” Sylvia’s hands landed on her hips as she regarded me. It was as if she was seeing me for the first time. “Has he said something to you?”
Since I was still waking up, it took a few moments for those words to sink in. “Um…”
“You don’t have to answer that.” Bree was surlier than usual. I might have laughed if her mother hadn’t been pacing the space at the end of the bed. “Mother, we’ve talked about this.” Her tone was stern. “You’re far too invested in the idea of a relationship with Rufus.”
If looks could kill, Bree would be dead. Sylvia’s glare was like a sword through the heart. “We’ve been spending a lot of time together. Well, up until a few days ago. He likes me.”
This conversation made me distinctly uncomfortable.
I could have gotten up and headed to the bathroom—that might have even been the smart thing to do—but I didn’t.
Leaving Bree held no appeal for me, and I was still hopeful we could do our morning routine and talk before getting out of bed.
It didn’t matter what we talked about—anything and everything was on the table.
I just wasn’t ready to leave our cocoon.
Unfortunately, Sylvia was like a spider who was about to eat that cocoon.
“I’m not getting involved in this.” There was no give to Bree’s tone. “I’ve told you a million times that I don’t want to hear about you and your guys.”
“This time is different.” Sylvia made a sniffing sound. “We have a lot of the same interests.”
Bree made a derisive sound.
“We do,” Sylvia insisted. “I don’t need your attitude. I’m your mother. You’re supposed to be on my side.” The look she shot me suggested she believed I was the enemy. From her perspective, that was probably true.
“Maybe I should…” I glanced at Bree, unsure.
“No.” She shook her head. “You’re not going anywhere. As for you, Mom, I get tired of saying the same things to you over and over again. I don’t want to hear about your men.”
“But Rufus is ghosting me! He hasn’t returned my calls for three days.”
That was hardly surprising. My father might have found Sylvia entertaining for a solid five minutes or so, but she wasn’t the type of woman he was going to hitch his wagon to for more than a few meals.
She wasn’t young enough. She couldn’t be considered a trophy.
Sure, she might have been able to carry on a conversation with him—although I wasn’t certain that was actually true—but she didn’t fit the aesthetic.
I was not on the “that’s okay” express regarding my father’s dating habits, for the record.
He was not a good guy when it came to the opposite sex.
He’d lost the love of his life and refused to even entertain the idea of building a relationship on substance.
But part of me understood why he did what he did.
Sylvia wasn’t going to understand it, though.
“If he hasn’t called you in three days, where have you been at night?” Bree asked.
I cast her a sidelong look, remembering what she’d told me the night before. She was under the impression her mother and my father had been together. Obviously, that wasn’t the case.
“Where do you think I’ve been?” Sylvia snapped. “I’ve been following him. He can’t just ghost me. That’s not okay.”
“You’ve been following my father?” I blurted.
The look Sylvia shot me warned that if I judged her, there would be repercussions.
“Of course you’ve been following him,” I amended. “That’s totally normal.” I shot Bree a nervous look.
For her part, she didn’t look worried, just annoyed. She waved off my concern and levered herself up on her elbows. “I told you this wasn’t going to work,” she said to her mother.
I cringed at her “I told you so” attitude. That wasn’t going to work on her mother, was it?
“He’s been married three times,” Bree continued. “You’re not going to be wife number four. You showed me the photos of his two most recent wives, and you could be their mother.”
My stomach constricted. That was quite the icy response.
“He wants a more mature relationship,” Sylvia argued.
“Did he tell you that?”
“Not in so many words, but I know it.”
Bree rolled her eyes. “Be happy you got some free meals out of him at places you wouldn’t be able to go on your own.” She was brutally matter of fact. “I get that you thought this was going somewhere—you always think it’s going somewhere—but the warning signs were there from the start.”
Sylvia made a huffing sound that reminded me of a bull about to charge. “You never want what’s best for me,” she complained, switching tactics on a dime. “You never have sympathy for me.”
Bree merely shrugged. “I just know how you play the game. You play to win but never actually win. This time wasn’t going to be any different.”
“But … we have so much in common.” Sylvia wrung her hands.
“Yeah?” Bree eyed her mother with an unreadable look. “Do you like brussels sprouts?”
The question was so jarring I did a double take.
“Of course I like brussels sprouts,” Sylvia shot back. “What kind of question is that?”
Bree’s eyes moved to me. “Does your dad like brussels sprouts?”
It wasn’t a trick question, yet it felt like one. “Um… he likes roasted brussels sprouts,” I replied after a beat. “They’re his favorite vegetable.”
Bree nodded as if that was the response she was expecting. “And there it is.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Sylvia sputtered.
“Well, Steve Winters didn’t like brussels sprouts, so you hated them,” she replied, not missing a beat.
“Linc Reynolds loved them, so you learned a new recipe. Bob Cornell hated them, and you were back to hating them. Carter Kressley liked to roast them on the grill, so you were gung-ho to do that.” She paused a beat. “And so on and so on.”
In that moment, I realized what Bree was doing. She loved Sylvia because she was her mother, but she had zero respect for the woman, and they weren’t close. Sylvia had never been a mother to Bree. She’d kept Bree alive until Bree could be the one to take care of them both.
Slowly, I exhaled. Nobody had ever taken care of Bree.
That was why she seemed so unsure when I wanted to take care of her.
She was always on her own and had grown used to it, assuming that was the way it had to be.
If I wanted her to commit fully to me, I had to make her realize I didn’t just want to take care of her, but we needed to take care of each other.
I flopped back onto the pillow, excited to finally understand what needed to happen. Then I spoke without thinking. “My father isn’t ever going to commit to you. I’m sorry. You seem very nice.”
That was a gross exaggeration. I didn’t like Sylvia, because I knew how she’d treated Bree when she was growing up.
That hardly mattered, though. Even if everything went exactly how I wanted, Sylvia wasn’t going to be a regular fixture in our lives.
She would pop in and out at extended intervals.
Bree would let her because it was easier than the alternative. But Sylvia wasn’t going to be family.
“Rufus likes me,” Sylvia insisted. “We’ve had absolutely fascinating conversations.”
“My father never got over my mother’s death,” I countered.
“He was a crappy husband to her, and I have no doubt he cheated back then, but he loved her with his whole heart. He’s canonized her.
My mother wasn’t perfect, but he remembers her that way because he feels guilty about causing her pain.
She knew about the affairs. She ignored them because she was building a better life for me. ”
Sylvia frowned. “I’m not sure why you’re telling me this.”
“So you’ll understand. My father’s two most recent wives were distractions. He didn’t even pretend to love them. He’s never going to love anybody but my mother. He’s always going to feel guilty because he was a bad husband. You can’t fix that.”
Sylvia’s forehead creased, and I could practically hear the gears in her mind working. “Maybe I can help him with that. With the guilt, I mean.”
I opened my mouth to tell her it wasn’t going to happen—the woman was wasting her time, for crying out loud—but Bree stopped me with a small headshake. Her eyes said it all. It’s a waste of time. I clamped my mouth shut.
“Mother, do what you feel you need to do,” Bree said firmly. “If you get arrested for stalking him, I’m not going to bail you out. Just keep that in the back of your mind. Now, get out of here. Brody and I were sleeping.”
Sylvia edged toward the door. She looked lost in thought. She stopped before exiting. “Are you two a thing now?”
I held my breath as I waited for Bree to answer. I was curious what her response would be. It wouldn’t change my plan—I would make her feel safe one way or another—but I needed insight into where her head was at.
“No, Mom,” she said dryly. “I just bring random men home to sleep in my bed.”
Sylvia blinked. “Was that sarcasm?”
Bree blew out a sigh. “We’re a thing, Mom. Now … go away.” She made a shooing motion. “Shut that door when you go.”
I tried not to smile. She called us a thing. It was impossible to keep my lips from curving, however. Bree was already looking at me before I could pull the blanket over my mouth.
“Why are you looking so smug?” she demanded.
“No reason,” I lied.
She wasn’t going to fall for that. “No reason?”
I could have kept lying. Maybe it would have even been the smart thing to do. Instead, I shrugged. “You said we were a thing.”
Those words landed like an anvil, and she rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding me right now?”
I shook my head and reached for her, my fingers going into her ribs to tickle.
She was laughing so hard she sputtered. “Are you in middle school? Do you want to send me a note and ask me to check a box to go steady?”
“I would love to do that. I’ll get a pad of paper.” I didn’t want to leave her side. “When we get out of bed,” I clarified.
She laughed when I tickled her again, her eye roll disappearing. “You’re such a goofball.”
“Only with you.” That was the truth. “I can’t believe you just admitted we’re a thing.”
“I’ll take it back if you’re not careful,” she warned, although her tone lacked bite.
Just to be on the safe side, I changed the subject. “Is your mother really stalking my father?”
“Yes, but don’t worry. She’s not going to boil a bunny or anything. She’ll just spy on him until she actually catches him with somebody else and then make a scene.”
It was funny that she thought that was acceptable. “What sort of scene?”
“Like, she’ll march up to him in the middle of a restaurant and call him a cheater. To her, it’s a game. She wants him to chase her.”
“My father is not going to chase her. He’ll have her thrown out of the restaurant.”
“Oh, I know.” Bree bobbed her head. “That’s the result fifty percent of the time.”
“So why does she do it?”
“Because she feeds off the negative energy. It’s just who she is.” She paused a beat. “You can warn your dad if you want. If you’re worried he’ll be embarrassed, you can tell him what she’s going to do. I don’t care.”
“No.” I shook my head. Truth be told, a public embarrassment might be exactly what my father needed to reassess his life choices. “I kind of want her to do it. That might be fun.”
“Your father won’t think it’s fun.”
“I don’t care. He needs a wakeup call.” I pulled her tighter against me. “Let’s not worry about our parents, huh? Let them sort their own stuff out.”
“That’s been my philosophy with my mother for fifteen years or so.”
I gave her a kiss. “What do you want to do with our day?” I asked in a husky voice. I would accept any answer. There was one I was really hoping for, though.
“I thought we could spend it right here. I mean … if you don’t have any writing to get to or anything.”
It was a weekday. I should have been writing. Being ahead never felt so good. “You read my mind.”
She tapped the end of my nose. “Funny how that worked.”
We stared at each other for a long time, then we dove for each other. Yes, things were going my way. I just had to get us over the final hump. Somehow. She was worth it.