“Yeah, what have you got going on?” he asked, because the more his mother talked and the less he did, the better the call would go for Adam. He loved his mother, and it had actually been his dad who’d told him to call her once a weekand keep her updated with everything in his life. It had been good advice, because Adam knew he could always go to his mom for anything he needed.
“Ellie’s going to have another baby,” Momma said. “Her and Paxman are so excited.”
“Oh, that’s great news,” Adam said, smiling at the same time he realized that his mother would want to know about his love life as well. That she’d likely called to tell him about his sister’s pregnancy—and to give him her standard lecture on his single status.
“Before you ask,” he said, as she started to say something. “I’ve started seeing someone.”
“You have?” Momma asked. “Oh Adam, this is great news.”
“Momma, don’t act like that,” he said.
“Don’t act like what? You never tell me when you’re dating until it’s really serious.”
“Name the last person I told you I was dating.”
“Exactly,” she said without missing a beat. “You haven’t dated anyone seriously in years. So this is huge.”
“Or maybe you just called me on a Friday afternoon with news about Ellie, and I knew you were going to ask me if I was seeing anyone.” He grinned, because he had his mother pegged. “Because you want to have grandbabies, one right after the other.”
“Well, you can’t fault me for that,” she said.
“Actually, I can, Momma. You had your three babies.”
“And it was very hard to get all of you,” she said. “Your father and I had to work really hard.”
Adam reached up and ran his hand over his eyes. He’d been going over logistics for an hour to make sure that all the lighting, the stage setup, the heating elements they needed, the instrument changes, and everything could be handled by him and Morris.
Country Quad said they had a whole team of people that they traveled with or worked with at stadiums, but this was no stadium tour.
They needed a few instruments and stools, lights and multiple cameras, as Harry had promised to livestream each of the performances to his own social media. He had subscribers that paid a monthly fee for exclusive content, and he was going to be live for them.
“Her name’s Joey,” Adam said. “She’s got a couple pictures of us that I can send you.”
“How long have you been seeing her?” Momma asked.
“A couple of months,” Adam said. “One of the guys in Country Quad; she’s his daughter.”
“Oh, Adam.” Momma let his name hang there, filled with disappointment.
“It’s fine,” Adam said.
“Until it isn’t,” Momma said.
“Yeah, but right now it is,” he said. “Listen, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Okay,” she said. “Is it about Joey?”
“No,” Adam said, he pressed his eyes closed. “I mean, maybe a little bit.” He blew out his breath and got to his feet. He needed more coffee to have this conversation.
“She asked me to go to church with her in a couple ofweeks. She’s moving out. She doesn’t like to do things by herself.” That alone had prompted Adam to want to go to church, but he wasn’t sure if it was for the right reason or not.
“You used to love going to church,” Momma said. “When you were a little boy, you’d get up before all of us and start making pancakes, so we wouldn’t be late.”
Adam smiled to himself as he started making a new pot of coffee. “Did I really? I don’t remember that.”
“You really did,” Momma said, chuckling. “You used to get so mad at the twins, even when they were tiny babies, because it took me so long to get them ready to go.”
“Well, that’s because the twins are slow,” Adam said.
