“We should ask Emmy to put it on the menu at LuMac’s.”
“We’ll call it Summer Surprise.”
“Instant classic.”
Our laughter continues for a couple more seconds before she takes several deep breaths, each exhale a little shaky. She keeps her hand on her stomach as though she’s holding herself together.
“Thanks, Grace,” she says. Then, before I can ask why she’s thanking me, she turns away and starts off down the beach. Even plodding through the sand, she’s graceful. I watch her get smaller and smaller. I keep watching, her spoon still in my hand, until she’s nothing but a speck on the blue horizon.
Chapter Six
PETE IS HUGE. HIS SUN-DARKENED ARMS ARE LIKE HAM HOCKS, and he likes to grab my mother’s ass. He’s smacked, tapped, flicked, pinched, or patted it seven times since he walked in the door five minutes ago.
“So this is Grace! I remember you,” he says, after they make out for about ten damn hours while I busy myself digging around for some olive oil. He says my name like “Grice,” his lazy southern drawl warping the vowels. He and I only met once or twice while Jay and I were together—?obviously, neither one of us was too keen on meeting the parents. I had totally forgotten that his first name was Pete until a few hours ago. He was always just Mr. Lanier.
Now he winks a gray eye at me and pats my shoulder. His brown close-cropped hair is speckled with sawdust. A little falls onto my forearms. “You sure do make pretty babies, sugar,” he says to Mom with a butt slap. She giggles.
I grit my teeth and turn back to the chicken browning in the skillet. “I take after my father.”
A charged silence fills the kitchen. I fight to keep the smile off my face and glance over my shoulder to find Pete frowning and Mom glaring at me.
“Right. Well, I’m going to hop in the shower,” Pete says.
“Okay, honey. Dinner in ten, right, Grace?”
In reply, I stir the rice a little more vigorously than necessary.
Pete winks at me again and smacks a kiss onto Mom’s cheek before disappearing down the hall.
“You call that trying?” Mom asks as soon as he’s out of sight.
“I call that the best I can do.”
“‘I take after my father’? What the hell was that about?”
I whirl around to face her, rice-covered spatula in hand. “What? I do take after him.”
She flinches, then scowls as she cracks open a Bud Light. “For god’s sake, Grace. Grow up.”
I can’t help but laugh at that one. Grow up? I grew up a long time ago, the first time I walked into the living room to find her passed out on the couch, cozied up with a bottle of vodka. I was eight. It was my birthday.
A door down the hall creaks open and then slams shut. My stomach knots up. I turn off the burners, flip the chicken onto a clean plate, fluff the rice, my hands shaking through every movement.
“Julian!” Mom calls, and I cringe.
“Hey, Mrs. Glasser,” he says. I hear a barstool creak as he sits.
“Oh, honey, call me Maggie. Please.”
“Okay. Maggie.” He drawls her name out using what he thinks is his sexy voice. She giggles. I turn around and glare at him. He winks at me. What is it with these damn Lanier men and their damn winking and my mother’s damn giggling?
“Baby, I think that’s enough,” Mom says next to me.
“Huh?” I look down at the plate in front of me, half the pot of rice covering its surface. “Oh. Right.” I scoop some back into the pan and carry two plates to the table, accidentally kicking Jay in the shin as I pass him. He grunts but says nothing.
Mom fills glasses with iced tea, and even Jay deigns to set out forks and knives. God, it’s like something right out of a 1950s sitcom. Jay and Mom banter back and forth in a way that can really only be described as flirting. I’m about two seconds from scratching both their eyes out when the doorbell rings and then the door opens. Luca pops his head through and calls out, “Hello?”
“Luca!” Mom squeals, and runs over to him. She tackle-hugs him, and he lets out an Oof, nearly dropping the grease-stained paper bag in his arms.
