“I’m not psychoanalyzing you. Well, maybe a little,” he said. “I just think that you’ve gotten so used to expecting your family to think the worst of you, that you automatically view whatever they say through that lens. Based on the way you described them, I was prepared to meet a bunch of ogres, but your family is great. Okay, your dad’s a bit intimidating, but even he’s not as scary as I thought he would be.”
“I never said they were ogres,” she said.
“But do you think you’ve been fair to them? I haven’t seen anyone in your family judging you or talking down to you this weekend.”
“Look, I know what you’re getting at,” she said.
“Do you?”
“You think this has something to do with my learning disorder.”
“Your undiagnosed learning disorder,” he corrected her. “But, yeah, possibly. Now, this isreallygoing to sound like I’m psychoanalyzing you, but I think it’s possible that you’ve projected what you feel about yourself onto your family. They’re not the ones who see you as the black sheep, at least not from what I can tell.”
Taylor pinched his side. “I’m going to start calling you Doctor Phil instead of Twenty-Three.”
“Don’t put too much stock into my bullshit pop psychology,” he said. He trailed the pad of his thumb down her cheek. “I just don’t want you selling your family short.”
It would have been easier for Taylor to write his analysis off as bullshit if she hadn’t had similar thoughts over the years. Convincing herself that she was a normal, everyday slacker in a family of perfectionists had given her the green light to ignore her suspicions about why she’d always had such a hard time in school.
Maybe shehadbeen unfair to them. Maybe when her dad referred to Taylor’d Conditioning as her little fitness thing, there was more affection in his tone than she gave him credit for. Maybe it was more concern than censure she heard in her mom’s voice when she asked about how things were going.
Taylor considered how different it would feel if the next time she walked into this house, she felt relaxed instead of anxious. If she could enjoy her family without the fear that she was being judged. She felt the stress ebbing from her muscles just at the thought.
She laid her head flat on Jamar’s chest, but then jerked up. “What time is it?” Taylor asked.
Jamar reached over and grabbed his phone. “Just after three,” he said.
“Oh, shit,” Taylor said, pushing up from the bed. “I hate to come and run, but I need to get back to my room before the Colonel finds me in here. He’s always awake by four a.m.” She pulled on her T-shirt and shorts, then leaned over and pressed a kiss to Jamar’s mouth. “See you in a few hours. Remember, we need to be out of here by nine.”
She backed out of the room, quietly shutting the door behind her. Rounding the dividing wall, she stopped short at the sight of her mother leaning a hip against the kitchen island, her silk bathrobe cinched at the waist, a satin bonnet covering her hair.
Her arched eyebrows indicated that any excuse Taylor tried to come up with would be pointless. How many times had she been the recipient of that same look after being caught sneaking into the house as a teenager?
“Um, hey,” Taylor said.
“At least I like this one,” her mother said. “He’s more respectful than any of those boys you dated in high school.” She patted the stool next to her.
Taylor would rather walk over a bed of LEGOs in her bare feet than chat with her mother while the effects of an orgasm still hummed through her blood, but life didn’t always give you the options you wanted. She walked to the other side of the island and climbed onto the barstool. Her mom lifted aluminum foil from a plate, revealing several slices of leftover birthday cake. She grabbed two forks from the cutlery drawer and handed one to Taylor.
“Why are we eating cake at three a.m.?” Taylor asked.
“Why not?”
Taylor shrugged and nodded as she took a bite of dark chocolate cake with buttercream frosting, her dad’s favorite.
“For the record,” her mother said. “I don’t have a problem with you and Jamar sharing a bedroom. That’s your father.”
“Can we pick a different topic, because . . . ” Taylor waved her hands in a cutting motion before stabbing at her cake again.
“Okay, how are things going with work?” her mom asked. “You never mentioned what happened with that homeschooling job.”
Oh, God, please, just bring on the LEGOs.
Taylor chewed excessively slowly, giving herself time to decide how to respond.
“It sorta fell through,” she finally answered. “It all worked out in the end, though. If I had taken on the homeschool gig, I wouldn’t have had time to work with Jamar.”
Her mom gestured toward the guest bedroom with her head. “How serious is this?”
