“…and then Frank tells me the gutters are completely shot,” she says. “Apparently, the house is falling apart one expensive problem at a time.”
I immediately look up from my drink. “Ma.”
“What?” She waves a hand dismissively. “I wasn’t going to touch the ladder again.”
“Again?” Remy echoes.
Patty points at me defensively. “Your husband overreacts.”
“You climbed onto the roof during a wind advisory,” I remind her.
“It wasbarelyan advisory. More like a stiff breeze.”
Butch snorts into his whiskey. “Good thing Frank called me.”
My head turns. “He did?”
“Course he did.” Butch shrugs like this is obvious. “Guy wanted backup dealing with your mother.”
Patty gasps. “Traitor.”
“I told Frank if anything breaks, leaks, explodes, or starts making weird noises, he calls me first.” Butch points at her with his glass. “And you stay off ladders.”
To my complete shock, Ma doesn’t argue.
She just smiles softly into her champagne, and my chest quietly loosens. From beside me, Remy threads her fingers through mine.
For the first time in my life, it feels like somebody else is helping me carry the weight of worrying about Ma.
The photographer is moving around the room, taking photographs of the various tables. Adler is circulating, too, a few tables ahead, asking all the single women—including my mother—if they want to see his special workout technique. The terrifying part is that this strategy somehow occasionally works for him. Remy clocks this at the same moment that I do and makes a frantic gesture toward Knova. She immediately locks in and stalks over to intervene.
That’s when I hear the giggling.
Never in my life has a sound filled me with this much immediate dread. I whip my head around faster than I’ve ever moved on game day. Ma is standing at the dessert table, a glass of champagne in one hand. Butch stands beside her, one hand on her elbow as if he’s just stopped her from falling.
My mother isblushing.As in, all-the-way-down-into-the-collar-of-her-dress blushing. This isn’t a cute little back-and-forth.
“Oh, my God.” Remy covers her mouth with one hand. She doesn’t look anywhere near as horrified as I feel. In fact, she seems delighted. Betrayal. Absolute betrayal from my own wife. “You don’t think they’re…”
“No.” I shake my head. “No way.”
“Because theyarestaying on the same floor…”
“No.”
“Come on, it’s sweet.”
Easy for her to say. That’s not her mother aggressively flirting at the dessert table.
“It’s sweet when they flirt,” I tell her. “But I don’t want to think about them doing anything more than that.”
Her grin turns wicked. Whatever she says next is going to haunt my nightmares, and she knows it. Cara follows our line of sight, spots the heavy flirtation, and immediately hisses something to Bowen. He, in turn, writes it down.
At one of the other tables, Tristan lurches to his feet. He holds a glass of wine aloft. Judging by his rosy cheeks, this is not his first. “I want to make a toast!” he announces.
Minerva tries to tug him into his seat, but he will not be moved. He waves his glass toward us in a toast. “To our good buddy, Owen. He doesn’t talk a lot, but he’s good at goaltending. It’s kind of the same thing, really. Except, the opposite? He doesn’t let the words out, and he doesn’t let the puck in.”
His wife giggles into her napkin. In the corner, Knova finishes scolding Adler and points him toward his table, then rounds on Tristan.
