“Why do you feel like you have to keep proving to your parents that you’re not Tina? Anyone with eyes and ears who spends thirty seconds with you can tell that.”
“Parents have expectations for their kids. That’s just the way it is. Some people want their kids to grow up to be doctors. Some people want their kids to grow up to be professional athletes. Some people just want to raise happy, healthy adults who contribute to their communities.”
“Okay,” I said, waiting for her to finish.
“My parents were in the latter group. But Tina didn’t deliver. She never delivered. While I was bringing home A’s and B’s in school. She was bringing home Ds. In high school, when I joined the field hockey team and started a tutoring program, Tina played hooky and got busted with pot in the baseball dugout after school.”
“Her choice,” I pointed out.
“But imagine what it was like seeing the parents you love so much get hurt over and over again. I had to be the good one. I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t afford any kind of teen rebellion or bounce between majors finding myself in college. Not when they’d already struck out with one daughter.”
“Is that why you decided to marry that Warner guy?” I asked.
Her face shuttered in the mirror. “Probably part of it,” she said carefully. “He was a good choice. On paper.”
“You can’t spend your entire life trying to make everyone else happy, Naomi,” I warned her.
“Why not?”
She looked genuinely baffled.
“Eventually you’re going to give a little too much and you won’t have enough left over for yourself.”
“You sound like Stef,” she said.
“Now who’s being mean?” I teased. “Your parents don’t want you to be perfect. They want you to be happy. Yet once again, you’re jumping in and cleaning up your sister’s mess. You stepped into the role of parent with no notice, no preparation.”
“There was no other option.”
“Just because one of the choices is shitty doesn’t mean it’s not an option. Did you even want kids?” I asked.
She met my gaze in the mirror. “Yeah. I did. A lot actually. I thought it would be through more traditional means. And that I’d at least get to enjoy the baby-making end of things. But I’ve always wanted a family. Now I’m making a mess of everything and can’t even fill out an application correctly. And what if I don’t want this guardianship to be temporary? What if I want Waylay to stay with me permanently? What if she doesn’t want to stay with me? Or what if a judge decides I’m not good enough for her?”
She wielded a lip gloss at me.
“This is what it’s like living in my brain.”
“It’s fucking exhausting.”
“It is. And the one time I do something that’s purely selfish and just for me, it blows up in my face.”
“What did you do for you?” I asked.
“I had a one-night stand with a grumpy, tattooed barber.”
THIRTY
BREAKFAST OF SHAME
Naomi
“You don’t have to come along, you know,” I pointed out. “You didn’t get much sleep in the last forty-eight hours.”
“Neither did you,” Knox said, making a show of locking up the cabin before we left. I knew he was making a point.
I didn’t like people who made points. At least not before I’d had my coffee.
We made the short walk to Liza’s in silence. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and my mind was spinning like a dryer with a lopsided load.
We’d slept together. As in fell asleep in the same bed without having sex together. Not only that, but I’d woken up with Knox “Viking” Morgan spooning me.
I didn’t know much about no strings. Hell, I had so many strings attached to so many things, I’d been tied up in knots for most of my adult life. But even I knew that sharing a bed and cuddling was way too intimate for what we’d both agreed to.
I mean, don’t get me wrong. Waking up with Knox’s hard—and I do mean hard—body at my back, his arm draped heavily over my waist was one of the best ways in the world to wake up.
But it wasn’t part of the agreement. There was a reason for rules. Rules would keep me from falling for the grumpy, cuddly Viking.
I chewed on my lower lip.
Men got tired and didn’t want to walk women home or let women walk home alone only to be eaten by wildlife. The man had gone through a traumatic twenty-four hours. He probably wasn’t making the most rational decisions, I decided. Maybe Knox was just a restless sleeper. Maybe he spooned his dog in bed every night.