Chapter 45
ELLIOTT
Mom
Will you be at the reunion or not?
It’s been a month, and I can’t get enough of Loren. She is a whirlwind from the moment she steps through the door to the moment she falls asleep in my bed. We are in the thrall of the honeymoon stage of a relationship, and damn does it feel good to finally be here.
Well, not here, here. Because here is in my parents’ living room, staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, my mother on the other end with her finger on the trigger.
Not a real gun, mind you, but from the way she wields her words, it might as well be. She’s already asked about work in her usual sneery way, but her opinion doesn’t sting as much as it used to.
I’m proud of what I do, and that’s become enough.
“You’re coming next weekend,” she drawls, making it clear that this isn’t a suggestion or question, but an edict. The pleats on her forest-green skirt are perfectly straight where they drape across her knees, and her ankles are crossed like she’s a queen on her floral throne.
It’s not that I’ve forgotten about the family reunion.
I’ve completely blocked it from my mind.
As far as I’m concerned, this year’s event has been canceled due to…bad weather?
That’s right. It’s been too sunny and warm lately. No one wants to be out in that.
Maybe I could lie and say I have plans.
Except I don’t have plans, and my mother has a built-in lie detector.
She knows something is up, has already pointed out how little I’ve been here over the last few weeks. How I never want to have dinner with them anymore.
I can’t come right out and tell her that Loren’s dinners are better. (And her desserts too, if you catch my drift.)
To be honest, I’ve been hesitant to tell her anything about Loren because we’re in this romantic little bubble and my mother is like a porcupine.
Maybe if she sees how happy we are together, she’ll find a way to be happy for me.
My mother smooths a nonexistent wrinkle from her white silk blouse. She looks like she’s about to head off to the church for a bazaar, not spend the next hour in the kitchen cooking for Dad.
“Nobody knows how long they have left with the ones they love,” she goes on. “For all we know, your grandmother could drop dead in the morning.”
My hand clenches around the glass of sweet tea she forced into it the moment I set foot inside. “Is grandma sick?” Hopefully, she didn’t catch something on that cruise she went on a few weeks ago. My grandmother travels more than anyone I’ve ever met.
Mom’s lips pinch. “No, but she could get sick.”
So could I but turning the argument back on my mother will only end in tears. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of her mascara getting smeared.
Like most of our conversations, we both know where this is headed. I don’t like disappointing her, but I also don’t like being told where to go, what time to be there, and what to wear.
Her eyes glisten, tears poised, waiting for her command to fall.
If there’s one thing I hate more than the aforementioned things, it’s a crying woman.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
With a deep inhale, I swallow my protest and say, “I’ll be there.”
Her face brightens, like she wasn’t just on the verge of tears a split second ago. This woman really missed her calling as an actress. “You will?”
“Sure.” Maybe it won’t be so bad to hang out with my aunts and uncles and many cousins, assuming they don’t ask any probing questions.
My grandparents are getting up there in age as well.
By up there, I mean they’re in their late sixties.
The joys of being part of a family where everyone is married with children well before they hit twenty.
Almost everyone.
Maybe I could convince my girlfriend to come along.
That still feels so weird to say after all this time.
Girlfriend. To be honest, the term sounds childish when Loren is so much more.
But calling her “my obsession” makes me sound like I need to be institutionalized, “my lover” makes it sound like we’re in the midst of an illicit affair, and “my everything” would make her turn tail and run right back to Maryland.
So she’s my girlfriend, and as such, she should be by my side when I face the firing squad. Who knows, maybe my family will be so focused on her that they won’t even notice me.
When I get back home, I find my girlfriend on the couch, surrounded by blankets and with that box of too-sweet cereal she loves so much and a bowl of milk that has turned green from the dehydrated marshmallows sitting on the coffee table.
She smiles up at me, pausing the TV and tossing the remote next to her discarded spoon. “How’s your mom?”
“Same as every other time I see her.” I drop my keys into the bowl and remove my shoes, setting them beside the pair of heels Loren wore the other night. The heels and nothing else.
The memory makes my dick swell. But there will be plenty of time for that later. First: “We need to talk.”
Loren throws her hands up to her face, hiding behind her palms. “It’s the new shower curtain, isn’t it? I knew you’d hate it. I’m sorry. I’ll take it down right now.”
The neon yellow curtain she bought two days ago makes me feel like I’m showering inside a lemon, but it’s sunny and bright like Loren, so how can I complain? “It’s not the shower curtain.”
She peers at me between her fingers the same way she does at the stressful parts in movies. “Is it the coasters? I can never find one when I need it.”
That’s because she keeps putting them “away” when she cleans up, only she never puts them in the same place twice.
It’s fine, though. That coffee table is as old as the hills, so I don’t care if her bowls of milk leave stains. I’ve been meaning to get a new one anyway.
I gather her pile of blankets and slide beneath them. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have started the conversation like that. This isn’t bad news.” Unless she has no desire to meet my family. Then we need to have a whole different conversation. “At least I don’t think it is.”
“Tell me before I die.”
Always so dramatic. My mom is going to love her. “My family reunion is next weekend, and I was wondering if you’d be my date.”
She gasps softly. “You want me to meet your family?”
Oh shit. Are those tears in her eyes? Did I move too fast?
Dammit. I moved too fast. I catch her hands so she doesn’t go back to hiding again, holding them between mine. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I know we’ve only been dating for a few weeks.”
Her curls tumble over her shoulders when she shakes her head. “I want to. I really, really want to.”
“Really?” When she nods, some of the tightness in my chest eases. “I have to warn you, they’re…a lot. If my mom corners you, she’ll probably grill you about our relationship and may or may not cry when she finds out we’re living together.” On second thought… “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”
“I’ll be fine.”
She doesn’t know what she’s in for. But I do. Just in case, I’ll ask August to stick close. He’ll be more than happy for a reason to avoid his own mother.
I haven’t been to a reunion in four years, so I already know I won’t be as lucky.
“My family is insane.”
She slides onto my lap, her knees falling to either side of my hips and her smiling lips grazing mine. “Then it’s a good thing I’m a bit of chaos on my own.”