No way.
It’s not just Monica and Sarah. There are tables with tablecloths. A spread of food big enough to feed, if not an army, then a modest battalion. A fucking balloon arch. It’s a baby shower. Katie Singer’s baby shower.
And there are a shit ton of other people here.
My fury builds. I told her I didn’t want to come, and she forced me anyway. I tamp down my rage as I greet Katie, congratulating her, introducing Jack, and moving on to nod absently at other familiar faces.
Mom doesn’t look especially thrilled to see Jack. Although between his eye patch and the tabloid stories…
“Oh. My. Stars. Penny!” Sarah rushes over. She was always petite, but time and childbearing have given her luscious curves. Her dark-brown hair is pulled back into a neat braid, and all I can think of when I look at her is Mom calling her husband “homely.” I return her hug. Unlike her mother—or mine, actually—Sarah was always sweet.
“Our little Penny! You’re famous these days!” Monica’s nasal voice rings out. She’s holding her squirming grandson on her knee. He pushes off her and screams about sitting on the chair by himself, pulling one of her graying corkscrew curls. “Daniel, let go! Fine. Go sit,” she admonishes as the child scrambles into one of the deck chairs at the umbrella-ed table.
“Hi, Monica.” I resist the urge to confront her about the text that scared me half to death. There’s nothing to gain from that quarter. She, like my mom, is never wrong. “Sarah, Monica, this is Jack.”
“Oh! The magazines didn’t have a picture of you, but I had Sarah get on the Google and do a little searching. We weren’t sure it was you, though, in the picture.”
“Well, I hope I stack up well against the picture fromthe Google.” Jack smiles and nods at them both.
Sarah flushes and gives me a miserable look, whispering, “They wouldn’t stop until I did it. Your mom accidentally posted Jack’s name four times as her Facebook status.”
Sarah’s son Daniel refuses to budge from his seat, scribbling on paper after paper with the assortment of crayons on the table. Both Monica and Sarah are oblivious to my need for space, so I gesture for Jack to sit in the only available chair and drag the box that usually houses my mom’s outdoor cushions over to the table.
“Are you a pirate?” Daniel asks Jack.
Jack grins and leans close to him. “Yep. A pirate duke.” He waggles his eyebrows at me.
I roll my eyes but feel a thrill entirely incompatible with a backyard gathering blaze through me.
Mom looks hale and hearty, fully recovered from yesterday’s health drama and pleased as punch with herself. I sigh inwardly, quailing at the thought of telling her that luring me down here was not okay. Maybe it’s just better if Jack and I get going—
“This is you.” Daniel shoves a drawing at me. There’s a gigantic circle for a head, random splotches inside it that are clearly meant to be eyes, and assorted sticks poking out from the circle that I suppose are…limbs?
“The head is…to scale, I think,” Jack murmurs.
“Dick,” I mutter. “Mom, Jack and I can’t really stay—”
“Oh, good! Brian!” my mother shouts, waving to someone by the gate.
I can’t believe her.
“Brian, so glad you could come by. You’re too sweet,” my mom coos.
“Yeah, no worries, Mrs. H. My mom said you needed this for the party…” Brian holds out a foil-covered tray. He notices me, his eyes widening with delight.
“Perfect. You should stay! You and Penelope had to cut your coffee date short.”
So fucking disrespectful. She knows Jack is right here. I give Brian a tight smile in greeting and say, “Nice to see you, Brian. This isJack.” My tone, an almost-purr when I say Jack’s name, practically shouts,I’ve been touching his winky all morning.
Jack stands and shakes Brian’s hand, and Brian’s quick darting glance between Jack and me tells me the message has been received.
I feel crappy. I don’t like causing people—especially nice-enough semi-strangers from the past—discomfort or disappointment. A possessive hand lands on my shoulders, tempering the shitty feeling. There is something more than a little hot about Jack looking at me with the word “mine” shining through his eyes.
“Penny, where’s your restroom?” Jack’s voice rumbles in my ear.
“I’m going in—I can show you,” my mom says.
“No, no.” I have no idea what Mom might say to him if she gets him alone. I don’t trust her not to manipulate him. “I’ll show him.”
