My sister shook her head. “Dreaming about some slug, I suppose.”
For once, no. I wanted to tell her about my plan, but it was too soon. I was also concerned about people judging me for traveling such an untraditional route to making a family.
“What were you saying while my mind was elsewhere?”
Cat gave me an indulgent look. She was well-used to me spacing out during a conversation.
“Just that I talked to Mom yesterday. I think she and Xavier are having problems.”
Xavier was my mother’s third husband, and the one who had lasted the longest. Before I could comment, Cat went on. “I know you’ve set boundaries with her—in fact, she’s constantly talking about them as if they’re the strangest thing in the world. ‘Why would my little girl not want to be in my life?’ But I just wanted you to know that she does ask about you.”
“Let me guess. She’s worried I don’t have a husband. Or that I’ll never find one. Or that I’ll die alone.”
Cat grimaced. “All of the above?”
I hadn’t gone full non-contact with my mother. We still texted on occasion, checked in at holidays and birthdays, and kept things civil. But after therapy in my late teens and early twenties, I recognized that my mother’s narcissism was unlikely to change and that my mental well-being was healthier without her needling criticism.
Cat had a different relationship with her, one that had mellowed with her marriage and the arrival of the twins. My older sister had trod a more conventional path, one my mother saw as valid and worthy. From a vanity standpoint, Mom hated that she was a grandmother, but she also saw it as an opportunity to wield the influence she had lost over us when she gave up custody all those years ago.
“You can tell her that I’m happy with my scholarly pursuits and my mission to become the best aunt ever.”
As for my plans to become a mother, I would keep those to myself for now. But I already had an idea for how to obtain the sperm I would need.
Or rather “the who.”
Chapter Three
Jason
* * *
One of the nicer things about being back in Chicago was the fact I was never short of a dinner invite. Someone was always cooking, and there was usually a spare seat at the table. With my brother Sean in town, visiting from Boston where he lived—or, according to him, where I’d abandoned him—we found ourselves at the apartment of my niece, Adeline, and her roommate, Rosie, for tacos and margaritas.
Indulging in good food, good company, and strong margaritas—so much so that I limited myself to a couple of sips because I was driving and planned to hit the gym early tomorrow—I regaled the group with gossipy tales about my Boston Cougars teammates while my friend and agent Lauren added colorful “confidential” commentary that had the other guests throwing out wild guesses about who she was talking about.
Meanwhile, there was an undercurrent between my nephew Hatch and another dinner guest, Summer Landry. She had ditched her fiancé, Chicago Rebels player Dash Carter, at the altar a couple of weeks ago, then went AWOL until she showed up a week back. I had recently learned that Hatchling came to her rescue outside the church and squirreled her away to the family’s vacation home in Saugatuck. Now they were pretending not to know each other, a complete shit show in the making.
But I didn’t have time to deal with that—or enjoy it—because a different kind of hellscape was on the horizon. About halfway through dinner, we were joined by another guest.
Rosie’s stepsister, Franky St. James.
We typically crossed paths a couple of times a year, not that we had anything to say to each other after a twenty-plus-year and counting acquaintance. Even the fact she was close to Sean had done little to change our viewpoints. She was still an intolerable know-it-all, and I was still the guy she thought was no better than shit on her shoe.
“Hey, sis!” Rosie jumped up to hug her. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
“We were just about to make another pitcher of margaritas,” Addy said. “You in?”
“Not for me. I’ll just stick with water.”
Franky hadn’t changed much; everything about her was still calculated to annoy me. Denim blue eyes, typically narrowed in disdain behind her glasses; a chin set stubbornly to emphasize whatever insulting point she had to make; dark hair, usually in some messy bundle on top of her head. That tumbled-out-of-bed rumpus said she had much more important things to be doing than worrying about her appearance. Which I supposed pointed to independence and a fondness of going against the grain.
Or maybe she just didn’t give a flying fuck what anyone thought of her.
Today she wore a Lakeshore University sweatshirt—that was where she indoctrinated the youth—over rolled up jeans along with librarian glasses, the bridge wrapped in blue duct tape. The real egghead professor stereotype.
She looked around the table. “I thought Sean was here?”
