My throat tightened. “You heard my mother.”
“I heard enough.”
“She’s awful.”
“She is.”
“I froze. I didn’t agree with her.”
He nodded once. “Okay.”
That was worse than if he’d argued.
“Drew.”
“I know how mothers like yours talk, Isa. I know people say ugly shit. I know you don’t control every word that comes out of her mouth.”
“Then why are you packing?”
He stood.
Not fast.
Not sharp.
Just stood, and suddenly the room felt too small around him.
“Because you didn’t say anything.”
My breath caught.
There it was.
The real thing.
Not my mother flirting with him in the kitchen the night before like he was some beautiful investment opportunity. Not my father making little digs about hedge funds and market manipulation because Richard Montgomery’s money made him feel small. Not the way everyone in my house kept looking at Drew like he was a score.
I swallowed. “I should have.”
“Yeah.”
“I know that.”
He looked away, his hand tightening around the wrapped box.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think you do.”
Tears burned fast and humiliating behind my eyes.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like I’m some horrible person because I didn’t fight my mother before coffee.”
His face changed then.
Not softer.
