I peeked at the time and looked at Elizabeth. “I could drop you back at the office, then pick you up after. We should still have enough daylight to walk the site.”
“Bring her along,” my mom said.
A strangled sound escaped me, and I leaned over my steering wheel. “Um,” I said, my voice weaker than usual.
“I don’t mind either way, as long as we get to stop at the bakery later,” Elizabeth said, and I could picture my mother wanting to analyze her voice.
“Darling girl, what do you like? I can make anything. Cheesecake? Carrot cake? Brownies? Are you Indian? I can make jalebi, laddu—”
“Mom…” I started and gave up. I’d already lost the battle.
“Any of the above!” Elizabeth yelled, clapping her hands together. Her turquoise nail polish glimmered in the sunlight.
“See you in ten minutes.” I hung up.
Blade Olive’s voice filled the car once more but all I could think about was that Elizabeth Gordon-Bettencourt would be the first girl I’d brought home to meet my mother.
25
ELIZABETH
[60 weeks ago]
@pancakesareelite:
Do you think we know each other in real life?
@theanswerisno:
Possible
@pancakesareelite:
Maybe we talk every day
@theanswerisno:
Impossible
@pancakesareelite:
Why?
@theanswerisno:
Because the only woman I talk to every day is my mother and that would be the worst outcome I can imagine
I was going to meet Lincoln’s mom. I hadn’t met another person’s parents in ages. No friend or lover had been close enough to invite me home, and now I was on my way to meet my boss’s mother.
And Lincoln was nervous. Did I need to be nervous?
He worried his bottom lip, and his gaze was fixed on the road. Every few seconds, he’d make an attempt at saying something like, “My mom…” Then he’d pause and rethink it. “She’s great but…” Sometimes he’d start all the way at the beginning. “Elizabeth, my mom is…” Cue the long exhale. The sigh. The hand sliding to rake through his beautiful, black curls.
What a lucky hand.
I glanced away. Maybe if I couldn’t see him, it would be easier to shut out these thoughts. “If it makes you too uncomfortable, then you don’t have to take me. I could even wait in the car, and you could hand-deliver me a snack.”
A peal of laughter burst out of him. “Yeah, right. As if my mom would allow that. She’d drag you in herself.”
