Actually, that sounded like a plan. Breakfast with people who made me happy or with a demon? Like that was even a choice.
With that settled, I closed my menu and focused back on the woman who hadn’t even opened hers, confirming maybe this wasn’t going to be a long conversation. Perfect. Well, that and Mrs. Jones wouldn’t lower herself to eating at a diner. My God. No eggs benedict? A mango power smoothie? God forbid. That shit was delicious, but the way she demanded things made them obnoxious.
With a deep breath, I leaned back and watched her sitting there, her beautiful green purse sitting on her lap, manicured fingers resting on the strap.
“You look well,” I told her honestly.
“You look… tan” was the nicest thing she managed to get out of her mouth.
I laughed and shrugged. Like that was an insult.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, pinching her lips together.
I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I set them on top of the table, tapping the plastic-covered menu with my fingernails. “I live here,” I told her, hopefully with a “duh” tone in my voice.
Her nostrils flared a little. “It took us a long time to find you. We had to hire a few private investigators.”
I lifted a shoulder. “I wasn’t hiding, and it wasn’t like Kaden didn’t know I grew up here.” He’d just forgotten or never processed it enough in the first place.
What a fucker, now that I thought about it.
Mrs. Jones’s nostrils flared again, and I could tell it was taking everything in her not to make a smart-ass comment. “You know how busy he is; he always has so many things going on in his head.”
I wasn’t going to make excuses or believe that same line I’d told myself over and over again during the length of our relationship. Poor wittle Kaden. So busy. So many things to do.
No, he didn’t. His mom did everything for him. I’d done everything for him. He had other people who did everything for him. I bet he had no idea how much money he paid in taxes or how much his mortgage was.
“Is that why he’s not here?” I asked her, barely repressing smiling sarcastically. “Because he’s so busy?”
I didn’t miss the way the corners of her mouth went white before she collected herself and said, “Yes.” Mrs. Jones cleared her throat lightly, just barely. “Aurora…”
“Look, Mrs. Jones, I’m sure you have better things to do than hang around Pagosa trying to catch up with me, because I know I do. What do you want?”
She gasped. “That’s incredibly rude.”
“It’s not rude if it’s the truth, because I really do have things to do.” It was my day off. I had breakfast to eat. A life to keep living.
She huffed in her seat, that thin, pink mouth pressing tight before she set her shoulders in a way that reminded me of all the times she’d had to be the bad guy with someone in honor of her son. “Fine.” She sat up straighter than she’d been before, collecting her words and possibly even bracing herself. “Kaden made a mistake.”
Maybe they would end up with that shit pie eventually, after all. “He’s made a lot of mistakes.”
Bless her heart, she tried not to sneer, but I knew her too well to fall for it. “I’d like to know what all these ‘a lot’ of mistakes are,” she snapped before she could stop herself.
I kept my mouth closed and gave her a look that I’d learned from the best, the man whose bed I’d left that morning. That was what I would have rather been thinking about. What was happening there. What could happen there. It sent a thrill through me.
“With you, Aurora. I’m talking about the mistake he made… leaving you.”
Bingo. I bet that cost her to say. “Oh, that. Okay. A） He didn’t leave me. You two kicked me out. B） I knew he’d regret it someday, so that’s nothing new, Mrs. Jones. But what does that have to do with me?” I had to coax her into saying what I was already totally aware of.
She couldn’t think I was so stupid to not know, right?
Then again, she probably did.
She let out an exasperated sound, her dark brown eyes moving across the diner quickly before returning to me. I knew what she saw. People in T-shirts and flannels, camouflaged coveralls, old jackets, and pullover Columbia sweaters. Nothing fancy or flashy.
“It has everything to do with you,” she whispered, stressing her words. “He never should have ended the relationship. You know he was under a lot of pressure with the way the Trivium album went, and you were making all these demands.”