I was successful. I was admired. I’d proven the thing I’d set out to prove.
But I was also alone. And I didn’t want to be anymore.
This trip was a turning point, no matter how I sliced it. I wasn’t even sure Adaline would agree to see me, but I had to try.
The front door was unlocked, and I crept in as quietly as possible. I set my duffel bag down by the foot of the stairs and grinned at the sound of my mom singing in the kitchen.
Nineties rap, if I heard her correctly.
Through the slider out to the backyard, Molly laughed loudly, and I wondered who else might be out there with her. I leaned my shoulder against the wall and grinned at the sight of my mom. She tossed out a line with a few curse words, and I smothered a laugh.
“No wonder your grandkids are completely corrupted,” I said.
With a shriek, she whirled, eyes wide and a soapy sponge clutched in her hand.
“Emmett?” she whispered. The sponge fell to the kitchen floor.
I smiled. “Is there an open room for me this week?”
That was when my mom—the most unrepentant badass woman I’d ever met in my life—dropped her face in her hands and burst into tears.
I strode across the kitchen and wrapped her in a huge hug, smiling into the top of her head when she flung her arms around my back.
“These are happy tears, right?” I asked.
She nodded. “It’s a weird mom thing, and I can’t control it. It’s horrible.”
I laughed.
She pulled away, wiping at her face with the back of her hand.
“Hi.”
She smacked my chest. “Holy crap, kid. What are you doing here?”
“Isabel’s freaking out about turning forty. There’s no way I’m missing that.”
Mom laughed, her eyes sparkling. “She really is.”
“Is there food?” I asked. “I’m starving.”
“Of course, you are,” she muttered. “Five minutes at home, and you’re cleaning out my fridge.”
I opened the appliance in question, snagging a container of deli meat. “Bread in the drawer? I’ll make a sandwich.”
She snatched it from my hands. “I can do that. You go outside. But I’ll warn you, Molly will overreact because she’s had a bit of wine.”
I grinned. “I heard her laughing. Who else is out there?”
Mom’s head appeared from behind the pantry door. “Adaline Wilder.”
My entire body went hot like someone flipped a switch on a burner. “She is?”
Thank goodness my mom’s attention moved back to trying to find a loaf of bread because I swiped a hand over my mouth.
“We were meeting about Isabel’s birthday.” She set the bread and meat down on the island. “The wine started about an hour and a half ago,” she said on a laugh. “I was going to go back out but heard them talking about sex, and I just noped the hell out of that conversation.”
“Sex?” I said weakly.
Mom hummed in affirmation. “I’m sure they’ll stop when you join them.”
One thing that had not occurred to me—as I sat in Ft. Lauderdale, pining for four fucking months—was the possibility that Adaline might have moved on to someone else. She hadn’t posted about anyone on her social media, not that that meant anything.
“I swear, it was bad enough trying to get you five through teenage hormones, but the number of times that I’ve almost walked in on the girls with their husbands is enough to scar me indefinitely.” She shuddered.