“Mom, can we come in? We’re still standing in the entry.”
“Oh, right!” She stepped back. “So, take off your shoes and make yourselves comfortable on the couch. That lawyer’s letter is on the table. I’ll make some coffee in the meantime. Would you like some, Gareth?”
He nodded. “Gladly.”
“No.” Hazel looked at him, irritated. “You don’t like coffee.”
“But I still drink it.”
“Why would you drink something you don’t like?”
“Because it has caffeine.”
She sighed. “Well, if that’s the case, he’ll have Coke, Mom. Coffee for me. Because I’m a grown woman, not a teenager.”
Thea laughed and then disappeared behind a door to her right, into the kitchen.
“You can’t stand people knowing about your sweet tooth, can you?” Hazel asked, shaking her head as they took off their shoes. “Milky Way, Froot Loops, Coke… You love all that stuff.”
“It's what kept me alive through college.”
She grinned. “Not just through college. Youstillhave a sweet tooth. But because it doesn’t fit your image, you keep it a secret.”
“No,” he snapped. “I don’t care what anyone thinks. But because it doesn’t fit my image, people assume I frown on sugar and take my coffee black. And I don’t want to explain that I’m more than my first impression. That isn’t my damn job.”
Until now, he’d believed Hazel was one of the few people he’d never have to explain it to.
He walked past her into the living room, where his gaze fell on an old secretary desk with dozens of photos on it. There were some of Hazel’s late father, but mostly of Hazel at various ages: a toddler dressed as a pumpkin, a teenager sleeping in a hammock strung in a tiny living room, and in her gown, smiling broadly at the Harvard commencement ceremony, where she was honored as valedictorian.
“Wasn’t she cute?” came a voice from his side. Hazel’s mother bustled back into the living room armed with a plate of cookies.
Unable to suppress his grin, he glanced at Hazel. “Very cute. Such an angel.”
She rolled her eyes. “Mom, you’re not still clipping coupons, are you?” She gestured to the living room table, where dozens of scraps of paper lay next to the lawyer’s letter. “Seriously, you don’t need fifty cents off toilet paper.”
Thea placed the cookies on the coupons and shrugged. “Old habits die hard. I enjoy clipping them.”
“But you don’t have to…”
Thea sighed before turning to Gareth. “Excuse my daughter. She’s ashamed that we used to be as poor as church mice,” she replied angrily, clicking her tongue. “Gareth, what do you think: Do you think we should be ashamed of having had a harder road than everyone else?”
Again, his gaze slid to Hazel, who was biting her cheeks uncertainly. “No,” he said earnestly. “I don’t think so. Hazel should be proud.”
That made Thea beam again, and she gave his arm a warm squeeze. “I like you, Gareth. Hazel can bring you home more often.” She winked conspiratorially at her daughter before disappearing back into the kitchen.
Gareth strolled over to the couch but paused when he met Hazel’s dark gaze. “What?”
“New rule,” she muttered. “We can’t beunbearablynice to our parents.”
“I beg your pardon? You told me to be nice!” he replied incredulously.
“Yes, but not so nice that my mother likes you!”
“Jesus, Mary, and…” He shook his head at her. “Have you always been this complicated?”
She tilted her head. “I wouldn’t call it complicated, more like emotionally ambitious and personally challenging.”
For a few seconds, he stared at her, perplexed, and then he started to chuckle softly.
