Page 95 of Just One Night Together
“I can believe it!” Brad laughed. “I can’t imagine you fighting to the death over keeping your fancy china that you never use instead of someone else’s fancy china that she never uses. I need to remember that I married someone more like Tiff.”
“Mom and Katie will work it out.”
“Well, I hope they do it soon. We can’t renovate when the house is jammed to the rafters withstuff.” He paused for a moment, and his tone was hopeful when he continued. “You could take some of it, you know.”
Haley laughed. “Not a chance! Taking it would mean I’d have to keep it, so Katie or Mom could come to visit it, just to make sure it was okay. No, thanks.”
“See? We’re just the same.” Brad sounded rueful but there was a twinkle in his eyes. “This might finish me.”
“I think you should just stay out of it,” Haley advised. “You can’t pick a side and win.”
“Don’t I know it.” He took the exit, heading toward the house. They rode in silence for a few minutes.
“There’s another warning, too,” he said when he turned into the subdivision. “One just for you.”
“Me? Why?” Haley had a bad feeling, but she’d been trying to dismiss it.
“Mom is over the moon about you moving home. I’m wondering if she thinks she’ll be able to move in with you and bring her stuff, since we all know that you don’t have any.”
Haley was surprised, although she knew she shouldn’t have been.
“Don’t look so astonished,” Brad said. “You have to have seen this coming.”
“I knew she wanted me to apply for the job, but that’s not quite the same as setting up house here together. I thought you were making her an apartment over the garage.”
“I am, but she might see your coming home as a better opportunity.”
“The stuff.” Haley made a face.
“The stuff.” Brad smiled. “Well, you always said you weren’t going to get married. Not our career girl Haley.”
Haley felt as if Garrett was sitting in the back seat, waiting for a gap in the conversation. Who was she kidding? Garrett didn’t wait for anything. He made his opportunities. His confidence that the world was his oyster was one of the things she’d most admired about him. He’d believed he could do anything he wanted and it seemed that the world shared his conviction. Everything had come his way so easily.
Like it was destined to be.
Would Haley see him on this trip? She had to be ready for it. Cool. Casual. Indifferent, if she could manage it.
She might not.
“That’s different from living with Mom,” she said, because Brad was waiting for her reply. They passed the high school and Haley noticed that it looked much the same.
“Once she fills your house with her stuff, it’ll be like you never left home.”
Haley shuddered. “And I’ll never be able to have sex again.”
Brad laughed hard then. “Might be worth getting married, rather than being celibate forever.”
“I’m not going to live that long, but if I was celibate...”
“...it would sure feel like forever,” they said together and grinned at each other.
Haley felt the weight of her family’s expectation and didn’t much like it. “Look, I haven’t decided to move home yet,” she protested. “It’s just a job interview.”
Brad gave her a look. “There is no ‘just’ in Mom’s world when it comes to all her chicks being close to the coop again.” He exhaled. “Let alone her stuff being rehomed. She’d probably offer the down payment for the house you two could share—unless, of course, you do plan to get married, too.”
Haley felt cornered that her acceptance of a job was being considered a done deal, even before she was offered the job. She really disliked that her marital status was up for discussion again. “Let me guess. You and Mom have a list of eligible bachelors drawn up and one is coming for dinner tonight.”
“Not tonight,” Brad acknowledged.
