Page 84 of All The Ways to Miss You

“Oh no.” Cait spins. Fear clouds her worried eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I jerk back a little.

“Get dressed, quick!” She shoos me away.

She’s having a panic attack with shaking hands and labored breathing, which has the opposite effect of what she wants. I stay planted and pin her arms to her sides, whispering relaxing words to calm her.

There’s a knock on the door behind us. We freeze and stare in the direction of the sound until Cait angry-whispers, “Go.”

Then it hits me. I know who it is, and this isn’t how I want to meet this person. Not in my underwear with we-just-had-sex hair and breath.

I scramble across the apartment and into my room, ransacking it for clean clothes that don’t exist. Knowing I’ve run out of time, I launch back to slam my bedroom door when Cait answers the front door. From across the apartment, I hear an exchange.

“Mom,” Cait says in a high-pitched, alarmed squeak.

Even though I can’t see them, I take the defensive, my muscles tensing and hackles rising. Cait hasn’t told me much about her family, only that they don’t get along. I don’t have to be a genius to understand that this visit is bad news.

“Did you think you could hide?” her mom barks. There’s more conversation I can’t make sense of, and then a sound I do. Heels clicking and traveling down the hall.

I thought I was safe when I closed my bedroom door, but I have only one leg in my dirty jeans when a woman with a serious case of TV anchor hair barges into my room without knocking. She’s an older version of Cait, dressed in a purple pantsuit with a flowery scarf wrapped around her neck. Attractive, but her presence is terrifying. Or maybe I’m under that impression because Cait appears terrified standing behind her.

“And who’s this?” The woman doesn’t bother to look away as I tug my pants to my waist, hiding my boxer briefs.

When it’s clear Cait isn’t answering, I button my pants and cross the room to extend my hand.

Her mom doesn’t accept it. She simply stares at my hand until it falls away. Her coldness could be because I’m still half-naked, or maybe it’s that she’s a complete bitch. I’m betting on the latter.

I rest my hands on my hips and stand up straighter, feeling like I’m being challenged. Or worse, that I need to acknowledge her importance.

“Evan Wade. Nice to meet you, Senator London.” I nod.

“Ah, I see.” She glances to Cait, who’s folding into herself and staring at the floor, looking like she wants to disappear.

“We weren’t expecting you,” I say, surveying the mess in my room. We left the beer-can pyramid in the corner as a joke. Thinking back, that might have been a bad call.

“I guess you wouldn’t since my daughter didn’t even tell me where she lives.”

Senator London spins and continues her self-guided tour, and like an idiot I follow in the wake of disaster. She slips into Cait’s room, and I lean into the door frame behind Cait, whose arms are wound tight. Up to this moment, she hasn’t said much.

Her mom pauses in front of Cait’s vision board, rips down a photo, and stares at it. She lifts it and waves it at us. I can see it’s the photo of me, the same one I was admiring earlier.

“Looks like you can take this one down. Mission accomplished,” she says and tosses it aside. Her gaze bounces from our lack of clothing to the unmade bed to three empty condom wrappers on the floor.

I was very proud of that number before she arrived. But now? I still am, but again, this isn’t the way I wanted to meet her mom—as a sex machine.

“Thank God I waited to find you until after the election. What would my constituency think about my unwed daughter shacking up with a frat boy? What was your name again, Everett?” She eyes me.

“Actually, it’s Evan. And I’m not just a frat boy; I’m Cait’s husband.” I smile at the joke, hoping to lighten the mood.

Her mom’s predator eyes press into slits, but their attention doesn’t land on me. Instead, she’s inspecting Cait’s ring finger and then her belly, which Cait automatically covers as if she’s guilty.

“I’m not pregnant, and we aren’t married. It’s a joke,” Cait finally says before storming out of the room, her fists clenched tight at her sides.

“Well, you’re setting yourself up for it, aren’t you?” Her mom brushes past, tracking Cait to the living room.

I follow again, knowing full well what’s coming. Their tension is on a countdown to combust in three, two, one . . .

“And why’s that so bad? Because it’s not what you want for me?”