“Okay, I’ll hang out for a while,” she says.
“Where the hell do you expect me to fit in this damn truck?” my mom groans when I open the door. I was going to pick up my mom to bring her out to watch some of the event, which turned into a whole group event in Warren’s truck.
There’s an open seat in the back with Tucker and Jackson or one in the front with Warren and Sienna. “You pick where you want,” I tell her.
Her eyes dart between Tucker and Sienna. “Sienna, I love you, sweetheart, but I’m going to have to sit next to his hottie back here.” She points to Tucker, who gives her a charming smile.
“I love you too,” Sienna says, laughing, and I don’t doubt it for a second. Sienna spent enough time next door with her grandma when she was growing up, and she built a special bond with both Hadley and my mom. “I don’t blame you. I’d want to sit next to him, too.”
I shake my head. “You two really aren’t helping. He doesn’t need the ego boost.”
Tucker winks at my mom. “Come here, Mama Jones.”
“Don’t say that again,” I say, glaring at him, which just makes him laugh.
“You can just call me Maggie. You act like we haven’t met before, Tucker,” my mom says.
“I would never forget meeting a beautiful woman,” he says.
Now I want to throttle him.
“You really are a charmer,” my mom says. She looks at Sienna. “No wonder you fell into this one’s orbit, too.”
Yeah, my mom knows. It was kind of impossible to keep the situation from her. While she was worried about me getting hurt, she has been nothing but supportive.
I shouldn’t have expected anything different form the woman who fearlessly raised my sister and I on our own, and if I do say so myself, she did a damn good job.
Sienna shrugs. “What can I say? My tastes are…” She pauses, thinking about how to finish her thought. “Eclectic,” she finally says.
“So, are we going to actually get into the truck, or are we going to stand here and talk all day?” I ask.
Mom smacks my chest. “I thought you were less grouchy because you were getting some now.”
“Mom,” I groan, dragging out the word.
Warren nudges my shoulder, so I can move to Mom’s other side. I didn’t even realize he had gotten out of the truck while everyone was talking.
He helps me get my mom into the truck. It isn’t lifted, but I don’t want her to hurt herself.
Mom has MS and arthritis, which limits her mobility. She’s in significantly less pain after the hip surgery she had a few months ago, but she still has to be careful.
I slide her cane under her feet. “Do you want me to grab your wheelchair from the garage, just in case?”
She doesn’t even use her words to answer me, just a deadly stare that made me straighten up right away when I was a kid.As an adult too, apparently.
Warren and I hop in the front seat on either side of Sienna. After getting buckled in, my hand ends up on her thigh.
I go to move it, but she gives me a small smile. That’s all the invitation I need to leave my hand right where it is for as long as she’ll allow it.
Through the rearview mirror, I see my mom leaning forward.
“Hi Jackson. It’s nice to see you,” she says, her voice gentler than her usual level. She digs in her purse, holding up a couple of suckers.
Why the woman has suckers in her purse, I have no idea.
“Do you want one?” she asks Jackson. He nods but looks at his dad.
Warren locks eyes with my mom in the mirror, giving her a nod.
