Nonna lovedThe Young and the Restlessand Shemar Moore had played Malcolm on the popular soap. She was right. Leo was a doppelgänger for the actor. People stopped him all the time for an autograph and selfie. Leo, being Leo always took the photo and signed his own name.
“Why you not marry him?”
“Well, Nonna, for one thing, he’s gay.” She knew this, she’d met Cameron on dozens of occasions.
“Ahh,” she waved her hand dismissively. “Why does this matter? Marriage doesn’t have to be about that.”
“About what? Sex? It sort of does, Nonna.”
“How do you know this?” She threw her hands in the air. “Have you been married? No!”
I mean, she wasn’t wrong. I took a look at her phone and saw that the text was a reminder about her doctor’s appointment at noon. I also noticed the time. 11:11. When Maddox and I were together, we would always stop and make a wish whenever it was 11:11. It was sort of our thing. I’d always wish that we’d get married and have a family.
Now, I knew that wish was impossible.
“What’s wrong? What does it say?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” I cleared my throat. “We need to go. Your appointment is in less than an hour.”
I’d made an appointment with her primary care physician just so I could get the full picture of her medical condition. Nonna had a tendency to downplay serious situations and exaggerate things that were negligible.
Like the fall. Did I believe that she fell? Sure. Did I believe that she needed me to fly across the country to help her? No.
“I will only go to doctor if you go to reunion.”
If I was hardheaded or stubborn, hypothetically that is because I was certainly not admitting that was the case, the apple had not fallen far from the Nonna tree. Once Nonna decided something was going to happen, it was. My father was the same way, but he was cruel. Nonna was not. She always at least had my best interest at heart. And whatever her true intentions were, it seemed to mean a lot to her.
Plus, it was being held in Napa. And a night in Napa didn’t sound so bad.
I sighed. “Fine. I’ll go to the reunion.”
At least I had something to wear.
3
MADDOX
This was a mistake.
I’d known that I shouldn’t have come to the reunion. This was a huge waste of time. And, in my life, time was precious. It was valuable. I could be spending it working or with people I actually gave a shit about. Not having the identical Groundhog’s Day conversation with a hundred people I barely remembered.
I was seriously considering writing my stats on my nametag. It would be a ton easier than answering the same questions over and over again.
Single.
Never married.
One child.
Daughter.
Hannah.
Five years old.
Tech billionaire.
I wouldn’t actually write the last one, and I hadn’t actually said that to anyone. Although, I had a feeling most people knew that fact. They tried to act like they had no idea what I’d been doing the past twenty years, but I could tell that was not the case.
