My mom’s lips purse. “Not to sound insufferable, but yes.”
Amy grins at my mom. “I love your confidence. I hope I’m a bad bitch when I—” She slaps her hand over her mouth, and pink floods her cheeks. She looks so cute I want to kiss her, but it would probably embarrass her.
My mom waves a hand. “You don’t have to worry about language in front of us. I am a bad bitch.”
Everyone chuckles, and a soft calm descends over my body, making my limbs heavy. This is probably the least irritated I’ve ever felt during a dinner with my parents, and it’s all because ofher. I feel better with her just sitting there.
What the fuck is this?
Why has this little woman always had so much power over me?
After asking the server for another bottle of wine, my mom turns to Amy. “I hope I don’t make you uncomfortable saying this, but you seem like a smart, driven girl. I’m sure you don’t think that a college relationship has any long-term potential.”
My stomach plummets to the floor when Amy’s eyes grow huge.
“Where are you going with this?” I ask, though I already know.
My mom shrugs. “Only that I don’t want you slacking on your long-term goals just because you finally got together with your high school crush.”
My stomach roils. Of course she would say something like that. She doesn’t care about my friendships or relationships, no matter how much they mean to me. She doesn’t fucking care about revealing my deeply held secrets at the dinner table. How the hell does she even know Amy was my crush?
“What are you talking about?” Amy asks, her voice unsteady.
“Now I’m embarrassing Tristan,” my mom says, meeting my eyes. “You haven’t told her?”
“I didn’t have a crush on her.”
My mom smiles knowingly as she takes a sip of her near empty glass of wine. “Okay, maybe I’m making assumptions, but you definitely talked about her a lot.”
My jaw clenches of its own will. When did my mom ever listen to me in high school? Every time I tried to start a conversation, it was like the lights went out in her eyes, and she picked up her phone to get her through the tedium of hearing me talk. Just my luck, the one thing that punctured through her wall of indifference was my obsession with Amy.
“He was my bully,” Amy says and whips around to face her. Thankfully, she’s smiling, but probably only to smooth any awkwardness coming from her candor.
“You know how high school boys are,” my mom says, “they tease the girls they really like. As much as I tried to protect Tristan from toxic masculinity, I couldn’t keep him out of his peer group. Which I assure you is where he got it from, not from me or his dad.”
“Anyway,” my dad interjects, probably feeling just as uncomfortable with the turn of this conversation as I am. “Tristan, I have a proposition for you.” He smiles. “What if I gave you a Tesla in exchange for an A in Probability in Statistics?”
Holy fuck. He’s clearly not thought about anything else since he heard about the D. God, my parents are the worst. He’s making me look like a little trust fund bitch right in front of Amy.
“I don’t need a Tesla,” I say.
“I’ll take your Tesla,” Amy says, winning a huge grin from my dad.
“There you go,” he says. “Win it for your girlfriend.”
Girlfriend. Holy shit, that sounds good. So good.
Like coming home.
A chill runs down my spine. What the fuck is wrong with me?
“She’s not really my girlfriend,” I say, and Amy’s expression instantly changes. Her eyes grow remote.
Is she upset that I corrected my dad?
I’m fine with her being my girlfriend after the game is over—at least, I think I am—but she’s not my girlfriend now. Why is she retreating from me?
Amy
