I shoot out a quick “works for me,” then spray a coat of hairspray over my curls while they cool. I can’t think about Bigfoot hunting right now. I have a dinner to crash.
Adam said my mom told him to be at my parents’ house at six. I’ll pop in a few minutes early so she can grieve the failure of her plan (i.e., rip me a new one) without an audience, but not so early that she’ll cancel the whole thing. Calculating? Maybe. I learned it from her.
I swipe on a layer of peach lip gloss, shove my feet into my sandals, and, after a short drive, walk into my parents’ foyer.
“Ma?” I call through the house.
“Stevie!” My mother’s beaming face pops around the corner from the kitchen. “Right when I expected you.”
“What?”
“If I had invited you to dinner with Adam, you’d’ve said no because no man is ever good enough for you.” She rolls her eyes. “But if you overheard me inviting Adam to a dinner that you weren’t invited to?” She waves her saucy spoon in the air like a magic wand, and she’s the fairy godmother of stubborn women and comfort food.
She’s right, dang it. But only because she doesn’t know about Adam and me—and she can’t.
I sniff the air. “Did you make shepherd’s pie?” I recognize the homey smell of my mom’s best dish. It’s also her butt-kissing dinner. She makes it whenever she and my dad have an argument. I’m guessing she made it to grease my wheels—or Adam’s. I still haven’t figured out what my mom is up to.
“Your dad requested it.” She turns for the kitchen and I follow her. “And I had some potatoes to get through.”
My mom has set the table the way she usually does for company: simple yellow cloth napkins, tall glasses of ice water, candles, and a ceramic pitcher of fresh-cut lupines in the center of the table. Adam will love those. I smirk at the controversial flower arrangement. I love being home, as crazy as my mom is. She might have a hidden agenda, but it doesn’t mean I don’t love her. Usually, she has some unseen benevolent purpose—like when she started taking me to work with her at the York’s place when I was a little girl.
At first I hated being dragged along. It was summer, and I wanted to run around the woods with my brothers. I had no interest in bumming around the mansion of some snobby old people and their awkwardly shy granddaughter. But one day my mom made us eat lunch together, and Diana and I became fast friends. My mom saw a girl who was isolated and lonely because of the life she was born into, and her only daughter needed an influence other than her rough-and-tumble brothers. My mom's fluffernutters and penny-ante machination worked.
Tonight her weapon of choice is shepherd's pie, and the stakes are higher. I need to stay sharp, or she’ll figure out that all of her work has already been done. I’m done for. Gone. Completely lost in Adam. And as a member of the committee, she can’t know that.
“What can I help with, Mom?” Did that sound blasé or breathless because I know a heart-stopping man is about to show up?
I look around the combined kitchen and dining area. She already has the main dish on the sideboard, drinks poured, and a tray of warm focaccia waiting. She brought out the big guns with the focaccia.
My mom doesn’t look up from where she’s tossing a salad. “Why don’t you light the candles?”
She always has taper candles on the table, even when it’s just pizza night. She loves the ambience, but I suspect in this case they’re better to lure potential boyfriends with, my dear.
I do as she says, though. I’m holding the long lighter over the white tapers in their buffed brass candlesticks when there’s a knock at the door.
“I’ll get that,” my dad calls, emerging from the hallway.
My mom wags her eyebrows, dropping the tongs in the salad bowl with a clatter. She titters—Inger Sullivan, mother of four and president of our church’s women’s organization—giggles like a teenager. Then she bounces after my dad into the foyer.
I fumble my parents’ lighter back into the junk drawer and smooth my hands down my jeans. Should I go out there or wait for them to come back? Can I really act like I don’t know how it feels when Adam kisses the tender spot under my earlobe?
My face is hot. I’m experiencing one of my dreaded full-body blushes. Curse my fair skin.
Don’t think about kissing Adam, I remind myself, like it’s that easy. For all my parents know, he’s just an acquaintancewith whom I’ve done minor cottontail rabbit research—which is how I found out the man makes a mean daisy crown, and how warm his hugs are, and how his arms—
“Gah!” I snatch two oven mitts from the drawer, frantically fanning my hot face, my neck, my chest, then my armpits, tipping my face to the ceiling fan over the dining table.
“Stevie, Adam is—” My mom stops herself with a sigh of defeat. “Here. Everything okay, hon?” she asks sweetly.
My strangled laugh sounds deranged. I wave the oven mitts with emphasis, demonstrating the fanning effect like an idiot. “I got hot.”
My dad is already moving for the thermostat. “I’ll turn up the air before this guy takes off his shirt,” he teases, giving Adam a hearty clap on the shoulder and heading down the hall.
I’d like to be buried in the backyard next to my old parakeet, Mr. Lucky.
Of course my dad won’t go easy on Adam tonight. He’s been my gatekeeper since day one—something I’ve appreciated until this moment.
And Adam. He’s already uncomfortable in social situations. I’m sure it took a lot for him to even be here. The man has made concession after concession this week. He’s stretched himself far beyond his comfort zone, thanks to me, and he’s being taunted in return.
