“Ha-ha! She wants grandkids already,” Kristy burst out, and I swatted her shoulder. She was the annoying sister I never had.
“How are you feeling? Have I helped at all?” my mother asked, her tone less concerned and more hopeful.
“You definitely helped. And I feel better, a lot better. Thanks, Mom.” I squeezed her hard. “I want to soak in all this information and really think about things. I can’t keep playing Dalton like a pinball machine. When I talk to him, I want to be one hundred percent sure of everything I feel.”
“Don’t take too long,” my mom warned.
“I just need a few days to get my head right.”
Mom gave me a mischievous grin. “That’s what I told him you’d say.”
Shocked, I practically choked on my own tongue. I reached out for Kristy to steady myself, and noticed her jaw was hanging wide open.
“What did you just say?” I asked my mom once I found my voice.
Her eyes twinkled as she sat back down in her chair. “That’s what I told the young man when he stopped by here this morning. I told him to give you time. But that you’d come around.”
“Mom! Dalton was here?”
“That boy’s in love with you, Cammie.”
“What did he want? Why was he here?”
“He wanted to talk to me about you. He wondered if I had any advice when it came to you and your feelings.”
I tried to ask my mom more questions, but you couldn’t hear a damn thing over the sound of Kristy’s howling laughter.
“Oh, that’s classic. Dalton came here before we did?” Kristy held her stomach, she was laughing so hard. “Holy crap, Cammie, you don’t have anyone on your side.”
I gave my best friend another not-so-gentle swat. “It’s not funny. This is not funny, damn it!”
Mom turned serious as her gaze snared mine. “I will support whatever decision you decide to make when it comes to Dalton and your heart. But I’ll be sad for you if you don’t at least give him a chance. I see it in your eyes when you talk about him, the same way I saw it in his eyes when he spoke about you. You two care about each other.”
Her eyes took on a dreamy look as she added, “He seems like a nice young man. Don’t give up because you’re scared. Relationships are always scary. Giving your heart to someone is terrifying, no matter what they do for a living. Loving another person is taking a giant leap of faith. It’s being vulnerable at the most basic level. It’s like taking your heart out of your chest and chucking it off a cliff, hoping that someone is waiting at the bottom with open arms to catch it.”
“Thanks for that visual, Mom,” I said with a groan.
“I’m just saying that love is always going to be scary at times. But when it’s with the right person, it’s much more than that. So much more.”
Mom looked wistful, and instead of giving her the third degree about Dalton coming over, I decided to save that inquisition for him. Before I could say anything else, she stood up.
“All right.” She brushed her hands against the top of her jeans. “You two need to skedaddle, because I have a date with Richard that I need to get ready for.”
Richard was my mom’s boyfriend for the last couple of years. He was a good enough guy, but he seemed to be the exact opposite of my dad, as far as I could remember. Where my dad had been funny and charismatic, Richard was shy and more reserved. But he made my mom happy, and so you’d never hear me complain.
As Kristy got up to leave, I planted a kiss on my mom’s cheek, whispered thank-you in her ear, and squeezed her so hard I felt my heart expanding inside my chest.
“Love you, sweetheart. Call me and let me know what you decide, okay?”
“I will,” I promised.
Kristy gave her a hug and we headed toward the door. My mom walked out with us, then stood in the driveway waving as we pulled out and onto the street. Driving away from my mom always made me feel sentimental, as if I was leaving home again for the first time.
Once we merged onto the freeway, I turned toward my best friend. “Say it,” I said, shooting her a glare from the passenger seat. “Just get it over with already.”
Kristy glanced over at me quickly, a shit-eating grin on her face. “Told you so,” she said with a shrug, as if my mom taking my side was never a real possibility.
This Better Be Good News
Dalton
A whole week had gone by since Cammie had forced me out of her life, and I’d wanted to punch every single person in the face ever since. Seven days, six nights.
I was nothing if not a rational man. I fought with myself constantly, resisting the strong urge to call her or send her text messages, no matter how badly I wanted to. Every hour of the fucking day, I wanted to tell her how I couldn’t stop thinking about her and ask her if she’d changed her mind yet. It fucking killed me that she hadn’t reached out to me either, and I refused to let my mind explore the reasons why that might be.
I’d gone to see her mom before I flew back to New York. She told me to give Cammie some space, but she was convinced that her daughter would eventually come around. So much so that she almost had me completely convinced by the time I left. I thought it would be awkward and weird to be in Cammie’s childhood home, talking to her mom like that, but she was truly hospitable and kind. Cammie was probably going to kick my ass once she found out, but it had been worth it. Desperate times and all that.