Could I get her to talk about Handlebar without telling her I know? I didn’t want to break his confidence.
“I’m focused on my career,” Cassie sniffed, finishing off her wine. “Besides, there is too much choice out there. I’m too young to settle.”
“Falling in love isn’t settling,” Rosa told her daughter.
“Maybe you just need to meet the right guy,” I suggest, looking at her over the rim of my glass as I take another sip, I can’t resist a little wink.
“I hear they have a hot new guy locked up at the compound, maybe I should go jump his bones,” she retorted.
Not sure what she was hoping to achieve by making that comment but it pissed the hell out of Rosa and she made sure Cassie knew it. Word about who was up in King’s cabin had spread enough that Cassie knew. How she knew he was hot was a different matter.
“How about we change the subject,” Cassie suggested with an epic eye roll aimed at her mom.
“Good thinking, go see to the pasta,” and with that, Rosa pushed Cassie off the counter.
Luckily, she made sure Cassie had set down her wine first. That led to a bread roll fight which I was way too inexperienced to join in with. I took cover behind the fridge while Rosa and Cassie battled it out, until they were in a heap of giggles on the floor. I laughed through a lot of it but it also made me sad, knowing what I did about my own mom.
After dinner, Cassie made her excuses to head out, not giving me an opportunity to get any information out of her about Handlebar but she knew I knew something.
It wasn’t that late so when Rosa suggested we hang out a while longer I happily agreed. We talked about Connor. I didn’t want to bring up what was going on with Warren, because I wasn’t sure if she knew about their relationship, but Rosa did agree things were going to be difficult for him for a long time. She reassured me he would always be looked after, making a joke about Smokey and Jolene being his guardian angels.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice that tattoo,” she said, bringing me another glass of wine.
It was my fourth of the night, I needed to start taking it easy. I brought my hair back around covering the tattoo. Hudson would kill me if he saw me doing that. I was still getting used to the reaction people kept having when they saw it.
Everyone thought it was a big deal, Warren had just given me a long, tight hug, before he headed out to do whatever it was he was doing lately.
“I heard you’re moving in with him too.”
“Christ, those guys are worse than gossiping housewives,” I groaned.
“You can’t hide anything from me. I think it’s great,” she nudged my toe with her boot. “You know I’ve shipped you guys for years.”
I laughed at her using stupid millennial phrases.
“I’m glad there is finally some good news around the compound for a change. And it’s good to see the two of you together and happy. There’s been a lot of shit to deal with these last few weeks.”
“Understatement,” I set my wine glass down. I looked around the room at all the photographs Rosa had up of her family. Our house had never been like that. We didn’t even have our high school pictures framed anywhere. Warren and I had pictures in our rooms, but the rest of the house was mostly barren. Guess I knew why now.
“Rosa,” I look over at her. I take a deep breath. “Do you have any pictures of her? Delaney I mean. My mom,” I stumbled over the words.
“I do,” she said, giving me a sad smile.
“Could I see them?”
“Of course,” she patted my thigh, said she’d be just a minute and headed upstairs.
I got a text from Hudson while I was waiting for her to come back. I replied to let him know he could come get me in an hour, it was after ten already so I was expecting some kind of argument but he agreed he’d be here in an hour.
“Here,” Rosa came back in carrying a box. “I hung on to them because…well I figured King would come out of the grief sooner than later and he’d want to see them again, but he never did. Then, when he told us all we had to forget she was here and that you kids weren’t to be told,” she shook her head, it was written all over her face what she thought about that. She passed me the box. “Do you need a minute?”
“No, stay” I told her, straightening up and putting my phone down beside me. “Maybe you could tell me a little bit more about her?” I frowned after asking, remembering the last time I asked her about my mom when I first got back.
“I’m sorry about the shit I told you about Danica. You came to me to ask me about your mom and I had to go along with what King told us all to do.”
“It isn’t your fault,” I reassure her but I had been thinking a lot about that conversation.
“All of it was true, I never lied about Danica and her time here, but I hated not being able to tell you about Delaney. I’ll tell you anything you need to know. War too when he’s ready.”
