“I’m in love with you.” I grin at him. “More so when I’m not under duress.”
He kisses me and I’m surer than I was two seconds ago.
I can’t see that well in the dim light, but he looks teary eyed. This has to be the first time I’ve ever elicited that much emotion in a man.
He takes a deep breath. “I guess saying everything out loud hit me in a way I wasn’t expecting.”
“I know.” I feel my eyes welling up, too. “You’re the only thing that feels solid to me. It’s like you…”
I don’t know where I’m going with that sentence, but it doesn’t matter, because Nick only hears the following sounds:
The jangle of keys in the front door. In comics, this would be aCLICK CLICK!with a few seconds passing before…
The softwhooshof the door flying open. Had we been able to use those seconds to escape into the office, we wouldn’t hear:
My mother’s eardrum-piercing, body-jolting shriek.
32
On Monday morning, I donot skip my alarms. I don’t keep my 9:16a.m.appointment with myself. I get up, intending to shower and look presentable by the time Mom and Perry return from their mini-staycation.
I’d spent all of Sunday with a knot in my stomach waiting for a text or a call. But I hadn’t heard from my mom since the moment she walked in onus.
Perry had apologized profusely while shielding their eyes and grabbing my mom’s forgotten overnight bag from their room. Nick dashed back into the office, but I vaguely recall covering myself with a throw blanket while having a shouting match with my mother about which one of us actually deserved the apology. I informed her that I wasn’t sorry for having a life; once dressed, Nick explained that he was, in fact, quite sorry.
I’ve been replaying the scene for the last twenty-four hours.
But as I’m about to come out of the office, I notice something tucked beneath the door: a stapled printout with the headline: “If You Could Do It All Over Again, Would You Still Date a Man with Kids?”
I snatch it off the floor. She’s printed out a thread from a forum on Steptalk.org. No need to scan it (I’ve already tortured myself with these things, Mother, thankyouverymuch) and venture into the living room to find Mom sitting at the kitchen counter in front of her laptop.
“What is this?” I ask, standing in the office doorway, holding up the pages.
“Sam, I want to talk to you.” She pushes her laptop to the side.
“If you talk to me like an adult.”
She raises her eyebrows and I brace myself: this expression signals a gathering storm. “You want to be treated like an adult now? Because we can do that.” She stands. “We can definitely do that.”
“Do you need to consult this helpful stepmother website or can we improvise?” I ask, heart pounding.
“We can skip right to what happened in my apartment Saturday night.”
“I’m an adult woman whose privacy you invaded,” I say as she walks toward the office.
“I invadedyourprivacy? This is my home! What about the life I’m supposed to have? Don’t you think I want privacy, too?”
