Page 54 of Slapshot Bride

“I… would you like me to get that?” she offers, and I don’t know what to say.

“I will… I…”

“It’s okay, honey. Let me.” She heads for the door and pulls it open. “A breakfast delivery?” she calls over her shoulder.

“Oh.” I let out a small laugh. “Easton ordered it for me before he left.”

Caroline grabs the bag and closes the door. The smell of warm pastry follows her in, and when she sets it on the counter, my tummy does the most embarrassing thing it can think of.

It rumbles.

She throws her head back and laughs. A wave of mortification hits me at first, but it quickly ebbs away because I find it funny too. I laugh with her.

“It happens at the worst possible time, huh?” she says when her laughter finally dies.

“Tell me about it.”

I reach for the bag and start unloading. Two croissants in their own paper sleeves. A small fruit cup. A yogurt and a separate sleeve of granola. A breakfast sandwich wrapped in foil.

I look down at the spread, and then up at Caroline.

“It's enough for two. Would you eat with me?” It i'sn't really a question. I'm already sliding a croissant onto a plate.

I sit back down.

We eat.

For a while we don't talk. She breaks her croissant with her fingers and eats it delicately. I’m transfixed. She has this air about her… it screams of calmness.

“Thank you for having me, Riley.”

I smile and shake my head. “Oh no, I should thank you for the good job you’ve done with your son. He’s been… the friend I didn’t know I needed. Thank you.”

She smiles. I feel something in my chest unclench by half an inch. We eat for another minute in companionable silence.

After a while, she sets her mug down and looks down at her hands, and her smile softens into something more complicated.

“Easton has always been that way. I can’t take the credit for it. He’s been his own kind of person since he was a kid, and it just amazes me.”

“He’s amazing,” I say before I can stop myself.

The look Caroline gives me is immediate. Equal parts interest and intrigue.

Uh-oh. I can practically see the wheels turning in her head.

“Tell me, how did you meet? He’s never mentioned you in our Sunday calls.”

And there, it is. The question with the crazy answer.

I look at this woman who has flown across the country because her son made a single sentence sound like he was struggling, and I don’t know what to tell her.

When I stay quiet for too long without answering, she speaks again, with concern.

“Honey, you don’t have to tell me anything. It’s okay. I don’t mean to pry,” she assures me, reaching across the counter to pat my hand gently. “Are you okay?”

I don't know whether it's the voice or her kindness. Or simply the fact that she's somebody's mother. But when I open my mouth to tell her I'm fine, everything else comes out instead.

It comes out in the wrong order.