Chapter 2Once you conquer your biggest insecurity, the world seems easy.
two
. . .
once you conquer your biggest insecurity, the world seems easy.
“No! Not like that!” My mom’s hand comes down across mine. And she wonders where I get my attitude from.
“Mom, I roll them this way every single time I make them, and they stay together just fine,” I groan, turning the eggroll over. I start lining them up in the bottom of the air fryer as she watches, glaring. Okay, I can’t actually see her glaring, but I can feel it.
“Well, you’ve been getting lucky,” she scoffs, using her knuckle to turn the temperature up. “Tuck the ends in, then roll. It stays together much better that way.”
I roll my eyes. “Did you hear what I just said? It works my way, too.”
She slides me an empty bowl as she begins popping lids to the sauce ingredients. “I pour, you mix,” she says, draining the remainder of the rice vinegar into the dish.
“So, how was work today?” she asks. Even though we’ve been kind of bickering, that’s just how we operate.
I shrug. I picture Miller’s messy strawberry-blonde hair beneath his hat and the way his cheeks turned pink when I called him on his lack of confidence.
It’s so annoying when a man is adorable and doesn’t even know it.
And that woman with the dog? What a fucking idiot.
A man chiseled from granite with a goofy, lopsided smile and a heart as wide as the Earth is big—I’m glad she said no.
She looked him up and down and decided, without knowing any of the shit that mattered, she didn’t like him.
Good. Leave the good men to the women who deserve them.
“Fine. Normal day.”
“Yeah?” Mom asks, measuring the garlic as I stir. Garlic is the only thing she measures because my stepdad doesn’t like a lot of it. “How are Beau and Beck doing?”
Mom’s always liked Beau. He’s annoyingly hard to dislike.
And when he got married to Beck, a single mom, he became a superhero in her eyes.
Mom was single for a handful of crucial years after finally breaking free from my toxic father.
Seeing Beau take on a child and love him like his own reminds her a lot of my step-father and how he has loved us since day one.
“Good. Beau brings Jett into the shop here and there.”
Mom bumps her shoulder into mine. “Yeah? You dote on him? Gah, he’s so stinkin’ cute.”
I snort at the idea that I’d even have the chance to dote on little Jetpack. “I always want to. You know I love babies. But Atti, Beau, and Miller hog him.”
Mom spoons chili sauce into the bowl, her lack of measuring making me a bit nervous. “I think that’s enough,” I say warily as she plunks another bright red spoonful into the bowl.
She ignores my advice, per usual. “I bet Miller looks good with a baby,” she adds as she finally pulls her glasses down from her head, sliding them on to peer at the recipe.
She shrugs off whatever she’s already done incorrectly, popping open the hoisin sauce as she returns the paper to the counter.
“He’s just got daddy written all over him, doesn’t he? ” she asks casually.
“Mom, daddy means something else,” I say, whisking the sauce, focusing on the way the viscous mixture seeps between the tines of the fork slowly, trying not to focus on how cute Miller looks with Jett.
My mom’s not wrong–Miller looks good with a baby, and I’m sure he’ll be a great father one day.
But why that makes my skin warm and something in my veins flutter, I have no clue.
Ignorance is bliss and all that.
“Don’t tell me daddy doesn’t mean daddy anymore,” she harrumphs as she begins re–shelving the sauce ingredients. Clean up as you go; she practices what she preaches, that’s for sure.
“I mean, it does mean father still, yes, but it also means like… daddy ,” I draw out, trying to send her the subtext without having to actually define it in words.
I’m really trying to save her the cringe of having her daughter explain the subtle difference between daddy and father, but in true mom fashion, she isn’t getting it.
“I’m not getting it,” she says, sliding the tray of the air fryer out to peek at the eggrolls. I slap her hand this time.
“Don’t open it! It will just take that much longer.” I slide the sauce onto the table and grab the plates from the cupboard. She sets down the cabbage salad, and I grab the filtered water pitcher from the fridge.
Sitting at the table, we talk while we wait for the food to finish cooking like we always do.
If we’re home together, we cook together.
I take over if it’s just me and she’s at work.
Teamwork is how we make it work because, between the three adults in our house, we have a collective five jobs—my mom and stepdad each have two, and I have one.
We work hard to keep the bills paid, keep food on the table, and keep Mara going in her competitive Karate.
It’s a group effort, and with my stepdad Art’s back going out in the last two years, the effort has shifted a lot more to mom and me.
But that’s okay. He supported us in bulk for many years, and now we have to pick up the slack. Fair’s fair.
“So, is Miller seeing anyone? He’s the last one, right? Now that Atticus has Beck’s friend, Goldie.”
I raise a brow as I trace the top of my water glass.
“You’re really going to ask if Miller is seeing anyone?
” Mom’s got this idea in her head that I have a crush on Miller, so anytime she feels she can casually bring him up, she does.
The thing is, mom’s about as casual as a fart in church.
I don’t know why she thinks I’m into him anyway.
She shrugs, sipping her water cooly. “I’m taken,” she says, her deadpan sarcasm always on point. “But now that I think of it, you’re single .”
I roll my eyes. “Smooth.”
She sips her water again, this time pretending to analyze the bottom of the glass when she reaches it. “And he’s what, a few years older than you, right? So he’s probably ready to settle down.”
“Mom!” I laugh. “I’m not into Miller, and he’s not into me, and us being single in the same building doesn’t mean we’re going to date!” I've said this much before, but apparently, it could stand to be said again.
She shrugs. “I just don’t like you being single, that’s all.”
“Why?” I ask because in all the times she’s attempted to play matchmaker, I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say what she’s just said. She doesn’t want me to be single. The playfulness that existed a moment ago seems to drain, leaving just the cold, hard reality in the bottom of the sieve.
She’s worried about me.
“I worry,” she says because I know my mom so well. “You can’t just listen to fictitious people's extraordinary love lives,” she says, tapping her ear to allude to my audiobook addiction. “You have to live, too.”
After checking the digital timer on the air fryer, I return my attention to her.
“I work full-time. I take Mara to most of her Karate events. If I’m not helping out here or there,” I nod toward the garage behind the house, off the alley.
“I’m sleeping. So how I can fit in a boyfriend, I’m not sure. ”
She tips her head to the side in that way moms do that completely tempers your argument. “There’s always time for love.”
I stick out my tongue and mime shoving a finger down my throat, complete with a little gag.
“Mom, seriously. There’s always time for love?
” Heat shimmies up my spine at her words because even though I’m teasing her, the need for love is alive inside me more than ever before.
I hate that Miller’s lopsided smile rushes through my mind at her words.
“It’s true. It doesn’t matter how hard we have to work; love is the reward. Without it, life is meaningless, Delane.” My eyes come to hers, and I also hate that there’s seriousness in them because I already know that closing myself off to dating isn’t good.
Dating is a skill, like learning a new language or anything else. The less I use the skill, the harder it is to use it well . The thing is, though, I haven’t had a good date in such a long time. And my audiobooks never disappoint me. Ever.
“I know, mom. It’s just harder than you’d think to find time for it all. And then to find someone worth the time.”
As if he could sense that I wanted an out from this conversation, Art pops his head in the back door, the tip of his nose pink from the fading Winter evening. “Ready?”
I look back to mom with a grin. “Sorry–gonna have to shelve this convo. Gotta change the oil in your car.” Mom waves me off, but we both know the conversation isn’t ending there.
As long as it’s not this exact moment, where I can’t stop thinking of Miller for some stupidly aggravating reason, then I’m fine with it.
I slither into my coat, already chilled from the cold lining.
Tugging my hat over my curls, I slide into my boots and gloves and meet Art out at the detached garage.
Mom’s car is inside, illuminated like a piece of art with a tall fluorescent light on a pole.
The hood is open, and as I approach the scene, I feel a lot like a doctor entering the surgical room.
Art slaps a jack in my hand and motions toward the light.
“Already got the shop light going but haven’t done much else, I’m sorry.
I’m really fighting my lumbar tonight, sweetie,” Art says with regret lacing his tone.
I loop my arm around his waist and tilt my head toward his chest as we survey mom’s car.
“Don’t worry. That’s why you taught me. So we can share the responsibilities.”
Art drops a kiss onto the top of my purple beanie. “Okay, enough petting my emotions. Let’s get to work before we turn into ice sculptures.”
“I think the expression is ‘stroking my ego,’ but I kinda like your way better,” I snicker as I drop to my knees next to the driver-side wheel well, getting the jack in place.