27
TWENTY-SEVEN
“So… are you two going to move in together?” Paisley sat on my couch, iced tea in front of her, and fixed me with a serious look.
I’d called her over to talk about the upcoming book release. She’d taken it better than I anticipated when I told her that I didn’t want her to travel with me for the media blitz during launch month. In fact, she’d immediately shrugged it off.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to spend time with Paisley. I enjoyed hanging out with her. A fifteen-city tour in a single month was a lot, though. We wouldn’t have more than a few days in each location. More time would be spent in New York, less time in Chicago. We would be on planes constantly, and there would be nights when it would be dinner and bed because we had to get up early for interviews the next morning. I would feel guilty if I didn’t spend time with Paisley. I knew myself well enough to know I would only want to spend time with Brody.
She hadn’t given me a hard time. Instead, she’d been intrigued at the idea of me being with Brody. She’d zeroed in on that information and refused to let it go.
“Why would you assume that?” I demanded. “We’ve been together for exactly five minutes.”
“Sounds like it’s been a lot longer than five minutes.” She cocked her head. “More like months, right?”
I shrugged, having no idea where she was going with this.
“My parents dated for two months and eloped,” she said. “They’ve been happily married for twenty-five years.”
I shot her a tempestuous look. “We’re not getting married.”
“Maybe not right this second.” Her smile was mischievous. “Something tells me you’re going to get married before it’s all said and done.”
She was a romantic at heart, a trait that had made me silently chuckle before Brody came into my life. I might have written romance books, but that didn’t mean I’d believed in romance in the real world. How wrong I’d been.
I opened my mouth, unsure what I was going to say, then looked over at the door as Hayley let herself in. She had a pastry box from a Savannah bakery. My mouth was already watering.
“Please tell me those are doughnuts,” I said.
“It’s doughnuts.” She dropped the box on the table and fixed me with a serious look before sitting. “Do you know that your mother is pacing the front yard?”
I nodded.
“Don’t you want to go out and talk to her?” Hayley pressed.
“Nope.” I shook my head. “She put herself in this position. She can get herself out of it.”
Hayley worked her jaw. “She looks deranged.”
Over the past few days, Brody had gently explained his theory regarding my mother’s mental health. I’d waved off the possibility at first—my mother wasn’t mentally ill, though she was obnoxious—but I’d started doing some reading. The internet was a bad place for researching symptoms. Everybody said so. It was confirmation bias when you found what you were lookingfor. I would have been lying if I said there weren’t some intriguing studies out there, however. Perhaps it wasn’t just that she was a bad mother. Maybe she’d never had a chance. That didn’t change the realities of my childhood or exonerate her of all the wrongs she’d committed, but it did make me wonder.
Unfortunately for me, when I’d brought up the notion of talking to a doctor, my mother had shot me down. She wasn’t going to do it. If I pushed further, she would disappear. She was right on schedule to do that anyway. Within the week, she would be gone.
“She’s melting down,” I explained. “Rufus has blocked her phone calls and messages. He’s not hanging out at his usual haunts. She can’t stalk him, because he lives in a gated community and she’s banned.”
Hayley’s eyes went wide. “That sounds like a lot.”
I shrugged. “The only thing that’s different about this situation is that Rufus has money. Like… real money. The other times she’s done this, the guys didn’t have the influence to get her arrested.”
“She hasn’t been arrested, though,” Hayley said.
She didn’t look as if she had a single iota of sympathy for my mother. I didn’t blame her. She knew the stories. Unlike me, she wasn’t emotionally tied to Mom. She was just my best friend in this scenario, and I was relieved to have her.
“Don’t worry about my mother,” I said. “She’ll be gone soon. She’s mad, but she’ll shift her attention to another guy just as soon as one comes along. Then she’ll leave with him, and I won’t hear from her for at least six months.”
Hayley pursed her lips, clearly debating if she should speak her mind.
“Go ahead,” I prodded, making things easier for her.
