Needing to switch gears, I blurt out an apology. “You’re right, Mom. I’m sorry I said you didn’t call. You obviouslydid.”
All three heads swivel around, their eyes wide as they stare at me like I’m a monkey in a zoo exhibit, scratching its ass, about to throw aturd.
I shrug, wanting this weird moment over so we can get back to talking about how my cousins are spoiled or my aunts are gossips or whatever. Anything but this. “You’re right. I could’ve called you guys too. I probably should have.” I’m a brat. I know this. But I’m the baby of the family, and sometimes I need love too, damn it. “So yeah.Sorry.”
After a long minute, my mom blinks a satisfied smile, and my dad leans over to hug me. “You look good,chiquita.”
Smiling at my childhood nickname, Little One, I hug him back. “You too, Pops.” I pat his round stomach. “Enjoying Mom’s cooking, Isee.”
He chuckles. “How’s the farm? Your sister tells me you’re working for a nicefamily.”
My eyes catch Kat’s and I tilt my head, wondering at my father’s meaning of the word ‘family.’ Does he think I’m working for a married couple or does he know it’s a single dad? I figured my sister would’ve told him all thedetails.
“It’s agreatfamily.” I sound like the freaking Frosted Flakes tiger, but why spill the beans now if they’re under the wrongassumption?
Is this why Kat picked me up this morning and told our parents we’d meet them at the diner? She wanted to avoid them meeting Ethan? Avoid them seeing my livingsituation?
“¿Y la esposa?” My mother sips her coffee, her expression not giving me a hint of what she wants toknow.
Is the wife…what?
I look to Kat for a clue here, but she’s too busy gorging on the omelet the waitress set down in front of her to notice mydistress.
Come on,Kat!
She’s chowing down, making these hungry sounds like she’s starving todeath.
Meanwhile, my stomach gurgles, from acid reflux or some kind of ulcer, and I press a sweaty palm to mybelly.
Fuck it. Might as well rip off the Band-Aid.
I glance between my parents. “You know they’re divorced, right? That I work for a single dad and hisbrother?”
Based on the shock on my dad’s face and the horror on my mother’s, they did notknow.
Folding my hands in front of me, I wait for the apocalypse to rain down on my head. It’s a position I’m used to in my family. Because this is what I do. I screwup.
Kat finally pauses in her race to fend off starvation and waves a fork atus.
“Ethan is awesome. I told you guys,” she says around a mouth full of food. “He’s good friends with Brady, and he pays his taxes, and he’s an awesomedad.”
That’s your argument? That he pays histaxes?
Where has my sister gone? The one who could argue the devil out of hisdue?
The bell over the front door jingles, and goosebumps break out on my arms. It’s the most insane thing ever that as I look up, I already know Ethan is here. He’s strolling up with hisdaughter.
My first reaction is the one I always have when I see him. Elation. The same feeling I got as a kid when I’d daydream one day my parents would win the Lotto and buy me apony.
When our eyes connect and his lips tilt up, I swear I hear that old time-y song my parents love by Frank Sinatra about flying to themoon.
Or maybe it’s playing on the overhead speakers. Whatever. The important thing is Ethan Carter is mine, and booyeah, baby, I’m fuckingpsyched!
But then I remember we’re notalone.
That soaring sensation of being batshit crazy about him takes a steep nosedive as I quickly tabulate all the things that can go wrong when he meets myfamily.
Sweet Jesus. I’m so sorry I haven’t been to church in ten thousandyears!
