Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Oliver
“You’re early.” My mother sticks out her cheek for a kiss. “To what do I owe this change of habit?”
I hold my tie down with one hand and place a quick kiss to her cheek. Then I sit at the table across from her.
The dining room of Hilary’s House, my mother’s favorite restaurant in Savannah, is bustling.
It’s the typical weekday crowd. Women coming from private tennis lessons, men hashing out contracts over lunch, and a handful of tourist couples lured in by the heavy local traffic fill the tables at the small establishment.
“Sometimes you just have to get out of the office,” I say with a tight grin.
I’m saved from my mother’s curious look by the waitress.
“What can I get for you today, Mr. Mason?” Lola asks.
“Grilled chicken breast with asparagus, if you have it. If not, I’ll take broccoli. Iced water with lemon. Thank you.”
I try not to look at her. It gets tricky when she salivates over me with my mother sitting inches away.
“Mrs. Mason?” Lola asks, brushing my bicep as she turns.
“Bring me a Cobb salad and an iced tea, please,” Mom says. “Thank you, Lola.”
“My pleasure. I’ll be back with your drinks,” she says.
Lola leaves us quickly, for which I’m both grateful and disappointed. I’m glad she’s gone; I have zero interest in humoring her advances today. On the other hand, the prospect of being at my mother’s behest isn’t exactly settling.
Mom takes her linen napkin and folds it. She places it on her lap, watching me with a knowing look.
Shit.
I sigh, resting my elbows on the table.
“Oliver?” She lifts a brow.
I pull my hands back to my lap.
“I thought I’d taken Boone out to lunch for a moment,” she teases.
My jaw drops in faux shock. “Are you telling me that I’ve taken you to lunch every week for the last four, five years and you take that little shit out and pay for it?”
She laughs, her eyes twinkling with mirth. “Like you would let me pay.”
“You’re damn right I wouldn’t.”
She reaches out and pats me on the arm. “That’s why you’re my favorite. Don’t tell the others.”
I roll my eyes as I lean back so Lola can set my drink in front of me.
“Thank you, honey,” Mom tells her.
Lola looks at me, but I only give her a small nod. No need to give her an opening for polite mindless chatter. Even that is more than I can give her today.
My head hurts. I slept like shit. Rolling out of bed a solid hour before usual—giving up on the prospect of getting any reasonable rest—I got to the office well before anyone else. But instead of being productive, I kept one eye on Shaye’s door.
I’m not sure what I’m more fucked up about—that I did something I should regret or the fact that I don’t.
The taste of her lips sits on my tongue even now. Her soft curves are fresh in my mind. But it’s more than that. It’s the weight of her smile, the vulnerability of the tears in her eyes, the truth of her words.
People don’t share things like she shared with me—intimate, personal details—with just anyone. I know that. I don’t share my fears and failures, not even with my brothers. But she chose to share them with me, chose to open her heart and give me a glimpse inside her wounds.
And now I don’t know what to do.
My instincts are all over the place. The calm, rational part of my brain that I rely on to guide me through complicated situations abandoned me on this one.
I want to put distance between us. I can see how many ways this can go wrong, and I don’t want to deal with the fallout of any of those circumstances. However, I have another urge just as strong in the opposite direction.
I want to care for her.
Imagining the pain she’s in after the loss of her husband, the loss of her living mother—something I can’t begin to wrap my brain around—and the loneliness she must face hurts my heart in a way that I can’t fully rationalize.
It’s not just that she’s alone that upsets me.
I’d have that sympathy for anyone in this situation. It’s more than that.
She understands betrayal from a parent. Is that what this is? What I feel?
There’s an understanding between us. No pretenses.
An instant, irresistible connection that I felt from the moment I laid eyes on her.
And now that she’s in my life, albeit not in the role that I contemplated that very first day, it doesn’t feel like she got here by happenstance.
It feels like she was placed here. For me.
Perhaps in more ways than I first imagined.
And that’s fucking crazy.
Shit like that doesn’t happen in the real world. Even if I play devil’s advocate—which I did hourly last night—and pretend Shaye is in my life for a reason, it doesn’t solve the problem. It causes more problems.
What am I supposed to do? Date her? Be her friend?
“I think we’re going to be good friends.”
Right.
Through the fogginess of the situation, all I know for sure—the one thing that I feel deep in my bones—is that I now have a responsibility. I need to protect her from more harm.
But what if I am the harm?
“Oliver?” Mom’s tone is stern.
I look up to see her watching me.
“What’s going on, honey?” she asks more sweetly since she has my attention.
“What do you mean?”
She gives me a no-nonsense look. “We can pretend that I’m suspicious because you were here early, or we can chalk it up to Boone being your brother and tipping me off that there was something brewing.
We could also just call it mother’s intuition and leave it at that. Whatever makes you feel better.”
“Fucking Boone,” I mumble.
I pick up the saltshaker and tap it against the table.
If he didn’t know something was afoot before, I’m sure the fact that I left the office at precisely seven thirty this morning made it apparent. But as much as I wanted to see Shaye this morning, I didn’t. I don’t want to see her until I know what I should say.
Which might be never.
“So …?” she prods.
“So let’s talk about Dad.” I get settled in my seat. “We had a nice father-son chat last night.”
Her face darkens. “So I heard.”
She heard? What the fuck does that mean?
“What the hell is wrong with him, Mom?”
She smiles, but it’s not a look written with happiness. Instead, the grin is almost a grimace, a tight-lipped gesture that makes me angry with my dad all over again.
“I know he’s been … slipping,” I say, watching her reaction for any indication that I should tread more lightly. “He’s been very disconnected for a while now. But last night? He was a total fucking dick—”
“Oliver.”
“What?” I lean forward and lower my voice. “Our shared DNA doesn’t save him from being labeled an asshole, Mom.”
Her eyes narrow. “No, but his behavior doesn’t give you an excuse to lower your standards either.”
“I apologize.” I blow out a hasty breath. The last thing I want to do is give her additional stress. I’m sure she has enough already. “Dad crossed a line last night.”
She opens her mouth to speak but doesn’t. I’m not sure if the words she planned to use were a lie and she reconsidered them, or if she can’t find them to use at all.
“I’m not sure what’s going on with him,” I say, “but he needs to check himself before he does damage that he can’t fix.”
I lean back as Lola places our lunch on the table. Mom has a quick exchange with the waitress before turning her attention back to me.
Her chest rises and falls as she lifts her fork. “I think he’s already done that.”
There’s a coolness to her words, a resolution, that lands hard.
Her fork dangles in the air, her eyes fixed on mine as she gives me a few moments to absorb the aftershocks of her statement.
I lean forward, forearms on the table, and hold my breath.
“Your father and I are separating, Oliver.”
Her tone is practiced, controlled. Her emotions are in check, as always. Her features are neutral and intentionally passive as she waits for me to react.
But I can’t. I can’t react. I can’t say anything because I really can’t believe what I’m hearing. Sure, Dad has been a prick, and Mom shouldn’t put up with it, but … my parents are separating?
My head spins as I sit back and try to work around this bomb that was just tossed onto my lap. In a split second, hundreds, if not thousands, of images and thoughts and concerns and emotions rip through me.
As the seconds tick by and my mother’s fork still hangs in the air, I snap back to reality.
I reach for her hand. “Mom.”
It’s all I can say as her shoulders drop. Her fork finally lays on the edge of her plate. She places her hand in mine.
The mask that she wears as the matriarch of the family slips ever so slightly. There’s a ripple in her green eyes, a wave of uncertainty that looks so strange on the woman who is always in charge.
“Mom,” I say again, my voice raspier than before. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, Oliver. I’m fine. I’m not at my best right now, as you may imagine, but I will be stronger for it in the end.”
“Have you told my brothers?”
She shakes her head. “It was decided on last night. No one knows but you.” Her grin is wobbly. “You are my test dummy.”
“Gee, thanks.”
She slips her hand from mine, but not before patting my forearm.
Mom sits back in her seat and composes herself again. Where she finds her strength—the will to press on in the face of what must be a devastating turn of events for her—is beyond me.
“This has been a long time coming,” she says. “It’s no one’s fault.”
“Okay. For one, this is me you’re talking to. Not Boone or Coy. You can speak frankly.”
She almost smiles. Almost.
“Second, I don’t want you to feel like you have to explain anything to me. This is your marriage. I mean, it affects me—yeah. I’m curious. I won’t lie. But I can imagine that some things would be …”
“Better off discussed with a friend. I agree.” She waves Lola off for refilling our drinks and waits for her to leave. “It’s important to me that you have whatever relationship you want with your father. Your relationship with him is independent of mine.”
“There won’t be a relationship to have if he doesn’t get his shit straight.”