Chapter Fifteen
· Adriana ·
I narrowed my eyes at the stack of games Mom carried into the house, all of them with library stickers on them, and the big Tupperware container balanced on top.
It was filled with plain cupcakes with white frosting, but they were nestled between all sorts of sprinkles, chocolates, mini-umbrellas, and other glittery cake decorations.
Since when did my mother even own a library card, let alone use it to check out board games?
I hadn’t even known our library stocked board games.
And the cupcake decorations? I hadn’t had a birthday cake until my eleventh birthday, and then it had been store-bought, because Mom hadn’t gotten into cooking until she had her own backyard supply of fresh goods.
“Did you look up babysitting activities on Pinterest?” I asked.
“No,” she huffed, “I watched some TikToks.”
“You? TikToks? Seriously?”
“No cap.” Mom grinned, and I felt part of my soul leave my body with the deepest, most soul-sucking cringe of my life.
“Ew.”
“Don’t look at me like that.” She started playing Tetris inside my fridge to find a space for the cupcake box. Brooks and Skye would be here soon, and while he and I were going to stay in Nashville tonight after his award ceremony, Mom would be here with Skye.
“Look at you like what?”
“Like your mom is about to embarrass you in front of your high-school crush by trying to be cool.”
“Well…” I eyed the board games. She’d never actually embarrassed me in front of any of the kids my age, because she was the cool mom.
She was younger than all the other parents and would go to concerts with me and even allowed me to get my nose pierced when I was fourteen.
And she didn’t say I told you so when the piercing got inflamed and I had to take it out.
Family games and cake decorating and using internet slang in the slightly wrong context, however?
“Who are you?” I muttered.
“I have one request,” she said as she spread the board games out next to each other on the kitchen counter.
“I don’t want to be called Grandma. Or Gammy.
Or Meemaw. I’m only two years older than her father.
I could still have a baby. Theoretically.
I’d then have a baby calling me Mom and a teenager calling me Grandma and that’s just confusing. ”
“Oh yeah? Are you planning to have another kid anytime soon?” My mind was reeling with all that information, and I decided to skip over the part where I hadn’t even considered that Brooks was closer to Mom’s age than mine. Those two existed in completely different contexts for me.
“Well…” Mom drummed her fingers against a beat-up Monopoly box.
“Mom?”
“I’ve started hormone therapy for IVF. Duncan and I want to try.”
“Oh.” My stomach dropped. “You really do want a baby.”
“Well, we’re not getting any younger, and if we don’t want to be senile by the kid’s graduation, it’s a bit…now or never.”
“Not never. You already had one baby.” Standing right here.
“Of course, and, Adriana, I love you. You are the light of my life, and I do not for one second regret bringing you into this world. But I was a teenager, and I had no clue what I was doing, and I was struggling so much the first few years. I finally feel ready to do it again, as a real grown-up, with a real support system.” She blinked furiously and dabbed at the skin under her eyes.
“I’ve thought about this a lot. Duncan and I have discussed it for hours on end. And I know you might have objections—”
“I think it’s a great idea.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed the thick knot in my throat even as tears pricked at my eyes. “Sorry, I’m just surprised. But you should have that. The house, the husband, the baby. If you want that, you should have it.”
“Honey…” Mom stepped toward me with outstretched hands, and I shrank back. If she hugged me, it would be for the wrong reasons. It would just make me feel worse. I wanted to be excited for her and happy-hug her. I just was neither excited nor happy right now.
“Just give me one minute? I promise I just need to process for a moment.” I walked backward to my bedroom and closed the door, just in time for a deep silent sob to rock through my chest. I sank to the floor and scrambled to my bedside table.
I’d stowed away a cherry red notebook that I’d bought on a whim in one of the Bravetown gift shops.
I flipped it open to the first page, and the napkin taped to it.
Two simple verses Brooks and I had strung together in a matter of minutes.
The first song I’d worked on in years.
I splayed my hand out over it and stared at my fake engagement ring.
Mom was going to start a new family. A picture-perfect, small-town family.
Brooks was going to get custody of Skye, and I didn’t fool myself into thinking that I was part of his family now just because we’d made out a couple of times.
Every night, we stopped before things could go any further than second base.
It was hardly even a friends-with-benefits type situation.
Mom and Duncan would have their bundle of joy.
Brooks would have Skye.
And I didn’t have more than two verses—one of which I hadn’t even written myself.
What if Brooks also started having now or never thoughts about fathering a second child? That could put an end to…whatever this was starting between us. I didn’t see myself knocked up anytime soon.
I grabbed a pen from the nightstand and flipped to a new page in the notebook, but when I set the tip down, no words came. Ink bled into the paper, creating a thick blue splotch.
I groaned and tossed both notebook and pen back into my nightstand, then I ducked into the bathroom to make sure my face didn’t look all splotchy and upset, and ran some cool water over my wrists for good measure.
I heard the doorbell and Mom greeting Brooks and Skye, but I stayed a moment longer until my chest didn’t feel like crumbling anymore.
“Ready?” Brooks asked when I stepped out. His eyes narrowed on my face, but he swallowed any comment he may have had.
“Yep. Could you grab the garment bag from the closet? I just need one second with my mom.”
“Sure.” Brooks gently squeezed my hand twice as he walked past and pressed a quick kiss to the top of my head, offering me a little reassurance, and confirming that I clearly didn’t look fine.
Skye was leaning on the counter and looking through the different board games, my mother next to her, trying to explain Catan and failing. Mom looked up at me, brows twitching up.
“Sorry,” I whispered. “I do think it’s great. It’s just going to take a second to get used to.”
“Get used to what?” Skye asked, eyes still on the box.
“I’m thinking of getting a dog,” Mom said. Yeah, okay, maybe she should have another kid. That kind of smooth-faced lying was completely wasted without Santa or the Tooth Fairy to use it on.
Skye’s eyes grew big. “Oh my god, yes, please. What kind? What do you want to name it? Can I come over and play with it and walk it? I can walk it every day.”
“Dude, when are you going to walk the dog? You’re starting riding lessons next week,” I said.
“Before school. I can come by every morning. Or if you go on vacation, I can be the dogsitter.”
“We’ll see,” Mom said. “My husband and I just started looking into it. It might take a couple of months.”
“That’s okay. I can wait,” Skye said. “I’ll be here.”
God, I hoped she was right.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Brooks asked once the hotel elevator doors had closed for us.
I’d gotten in his car, cranked up the radio, and stayed quiet on the drive to Nashville, and to his credit, he hadn’t tried turning the radio down to force me into a conversation.
It had helped. The road, the music, letting my hand trace waves out the window while Wild Fields shrank in the rearview mirror.
“My mom’s trying to get pregnant.”
“And you don’t think that’s a good idea?”
“I think it’s great for her and Duncan. It just felt like the world was moving on without me for a second.” I sighed. “But I’m not actually stuck at home. We’re here. Tonight is going to help. Can we focus on that?”
“Of course we can.” He leaned over, and I knew the little kiss to the top of my hair was coming, comfort automatically unfolding in anticipation of that show of support, but then the elevator chimed, and the doors opened, and Brooks pulled back.
I didn’t care that we were faced with a bustling hallway. That kiss was supposed to be mine, not for display, so I grabbed hold of his shirt, pulled him back to me, and tapped one finger against my forehead. “Kiss. Here.”
Brooks smiled so big, it erased any discomfort over potentially being seen. He followed through, leaving a perfect short kiss on my hairline. “You’re damn cute, you know that?”
My first instinct was to make a gagging sound, but it was hard to be cynical about affection when he expressed his with complete sincerity. “Mushy man,” I whispered.
“Mr. Monroe?” A tablet slapped against the elevator door, stopping it from closing again. A woman with a sleek pixie cut and a perfectly tailored pencil skirt raised her brows at us.
“And Adriana Banks,” Brooks supplied, nudging me out into the hallway.
“Perfect. I have you in room 312. Your team is here. Clothes have been announced and will be up any minute.” She tapped at her screen and strutted forward, not even looking up as she weaved through assistants with coffee orders and content managers with their phones out.
“I’ve got your car scheduled at the door in T-minus-150.
Enjoy your night.” She clicked her acrylic claws against the doorframe of room 312, the door already ajar, and turned around to beeline back to the elevator without another word, ready to welcome the next arrivals.
“Can we come in?” Brooks pushed the door wider.