“I’m too old for this,” I complained, backing away.
“Listen, sweetie. You’re allowed to have needs. You’re allowed to make mistakes. You’re allowed to make decisions your father or I might not agree with. It’s your life. You’re a beautiful, big-hearted, intelligent woman who needs to start figuring out what she wants.”
What did I want?
Right now I just wanted to crawl in bed and pull the covers over my head for a week. But I couldn’t. I had responsibilities. And one of those responsibilities had conned my father into taking her to the mall.
“Do you even want to be a guardian?” Mom asked.
I stilled at the question.
“I can’t imagine that taking in a soon-to-be twelve-year-old fit neatly into your life plan.”
“Mom, I couldn’t just let her end up with strangers.”
“What about your father and me? You didn’t think we’d be thrilled to make room in our lives for a granddaughter?”
“You shouldn’t have to raise your daughter’s daughter. It’s not fair. Dad’s retired. You’ll be there soon. That cruise was the first big trip you two have ever taken together.”
“Do you want to be her guardian?” Mom repeated, ignoring my excellent points.
Did I want this? Did I want to be a surrogate mother to Waylay?
I felt an echo of that warm glow in my chest. It pushed back against the cold that had settled there.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling my mouth do the impossible and curve into a small smile. It was the truth. I wanted this more than I’d ever wanted anything on my to do list. More than any goal I was single-mindedly marching toward. “I really do. I love her. I love being around her. I love when she comes home from school bursting with news to tell me. I love watching her grow into this smart, strong, confident kid who, every once in a while, lets her guard down and lets me in.”
“I know how that feels,” Mom said gently. “I wish it would happen more often.”
Ouch. Direct hit.
“Knox and I broke up,” I said in a rush. “We were never really together. We were just having really, really great sex. But I accidentally fell in love with him, which he warned me not to do. And now he thinks I’m too complicated and not worth the effort.”
Mom looked at her iced tea, then back at me. “I think we’re gonna need a stronger drink.”
Hours later I tiptoed out onto the deck with my phone in hand. The phone he’d bought me. Which meant it needed to be smashed into a million pieces at my earliest convenience.
The rest of the family was cleaning up from dinner. A dinner that Knox was conspicuously absent from. My mom had distracted Waylay from his absence by demanding a post-dinner fashion show of the new winter coat and sweaters my pushover father had bought her.
I had a headache from fake smiling.
I dialed the number before I could chicken out.
“Witty! What’s up? Did they find the bastard who broke in?”
I’d texted him and Sloane about the break-in. But this deserved a phone call.
“Stef.” My voice broke on his name.
“Shit. What happened? Are you okay? Is Waylay okay?”
I shook my head, trying to dislodge the lump in my throat. When I remembered what Knox had said.
“Do not shed one more tear over some asshole who never deserved you in the first place.”
I cleared my throat. “Knox ended things.”
“That gorgeous piece of garbage. Fake ended things or for real ended things?”
“Real ended things. I’m too ‘complicated.’”
“What the hell does he want? A simpleton? Simpletons are terrible in bed, and they’re worse at blow jobs.”
I managed a pathetic chuckle.
“Listen to me, Naomi. If that man isn’t smart enough to recognize how amazingly intelligent and beautiful and kind and caring and wickedly awesome at board games you are, it’s his loss. Which makes him the simpleton. I forbid you to spend one second of your time over-thinking this and coming to the false conclusion you’re the one with the problem.”
Well, there went my evening plans.
“I can’t believe I fell for him, Stef. What was I thinking?”
“You were thinking, ‘here’s a gorgeous man who’s great in bed who walks my niece to the bus stop, breaks my ex’s nose, and brings me mid-afternoon coffee so I don’t get cranky.’ All the signs were there because he put them there. If you ask me—which I know you didn’t—I’m betting he wasn’t faking it. He was feeling it, and it scared the shit out of him. The beautiful, tattooed piece of chicken shit.”