Never Have I Ever(87)

“How clever of you to have tits, then,” I said, deadpan.

That made her chuckle, but I could feel the prickle of something electric in the air between us. She was no more at ease than I was, and I was glad of it. If she was on edge, then there must still be a way for me to win her game. God, how I wanted to win.

There was an old picnic table on the walkway just before the dock, and she sat down to fill out the forms with made-up information. It rendered them useless, but there was nothing I could do about that. It was an added pressure pulsing at the base of my neck. The whole day felt like disaster coming, though it was warm and breezy-beautiful, a summer throwback with a high of eighty-seven. In Florida this passed for fall.

My feelings of dread, I knew, had little to do with today’s dive, and yet they colored everything. The weekend was being eaten up with boat trips and Roux and family obligations. I had almost no room to maneuver, and my time was running out.

Roux was flipping through the pages to find the signature lines. She paused to look up at me. “Take good care of my boy today.”

“Of course,” I said.

If she’d been any other mother, I would have asked her to do the same for Maddy. I’d tell her what I’d seen down in my basement. But this woman weaponized sex, and she was proud of it. She might be concerned, but she also might laugh and give Luca a gold-star sticker. I didn’t know if she was protecting the sweet kid that Luca seemed to be or actively raising a predator to follow in her footsteps.

Now she was filling out his forms, putting in his fake name. He was complicit in this much at least. He answered to “Luca” like a pro. But if he was trying to keep his mother out of jail, I couldn’t blame him. Most kids would do the same. That went double if the two of them were on the run from the man who had pounded her pretty face and her whole body black and purple, until it was as ugly as raw meat.

Every instinct, every minute I had spent with him, said Luca was troubled but not rotten. He was also likely new to this. After all, Roux had three full sets of fake ID. He had only one, and the “Luca” passport had been shiny-new and free of stamps. I believed he’d been protected, kept separate from her career until now. Then something—an arrest warrant, an attack, or a marriage gone so sour that it turned deadly—put them on the road with whatever possessions they could pack up in a hurry.

And Roux loved him. That was obvious. Maybe she wanted better for him than for herself. Most mothers did. As she finished the forms and rose, I decided I had to say something.

“Can I talk to you, mom to mom? About Luca?” All movement in her body stopped, as if I’d hit a button. I had her complete attention. Roux’s stillness, the preplanned absence of any tells, was her tell in and of itself.

“Okay,” she said. Light, but I heard wariness behind it.

“Don’t let the kids wander off together, even if you’re just in another room.” There was pleasure, only the smallest twinge, in saying it. Earned, I thought, considering how she’d dumped on my girl. Maddy tomboyed around in no makeup and outsize, floppy clothes, and Roux had acted as if Luca were too beautiful and shining to even notice she was female. I wasn’t sure what was going on between the kids, but he definitely knew she was a girl. Even so, Roux was staring at me blankly, as if I’d spoken in Latin. I clarified, “Things have heated up between Luca and Madison.”

She shook her head, instantly dismissing me. “No. You misunderstood her. He’s not into her that way. He told me.” That made me laugh, in spite of everything. The real deal, from my belly. Roux’s eyebrows rose. “What?”

I said, “You, the cagiest, most suspicious bitch on planet earth, you believe a teenage male who says he’s ‘not interested in a girl that way.’” Her gaze turned speculative, even concerned. “I’m not basing this on anything Mads told me. Things have gotten physical. I saw them.”

“How physical?” Her voice was sharp.

I gave her the same version I’d told Davis, loath to be more honest with this woman than with my own husband. “Everyone had their clothes on, but there were some wandering hands.”

I could practically see the wheels turning behind her eyes. Her gaze went to Maddy and Luca. They’d loaded the bags, and now they were standing on the deck together, yammering back and forth, pointing at an enormous pelican who had lighted on a nearby pylon.

Luca did genuinely seem to like her, the way Tig had liked me once upon a time. Maybe, in Luca’s head, they were only friends, but something else might well be growing in the depths of him. It had happened that way for Tig. He’d told me so last night, and in spite of everything I felt a little flush of pleasure. Tig would be sleeping now, paying for his late night, but I thought he’d text me as soon as he was up. It scared me, how much I was looking forward to that. Waiting for it, even. A bright spot in a brutal day.

Roux folded her arms, and her eyes on Maddy and Luca went as cool as a shark’s. Her face remained as serene as ever, but inside I could almost feel her balance shifting. She slid me a sideways, questioning glance. She knew as well as I did that teenagers talked. They told each other things they’d never tell adults.

She must be wondering what Luca might’ve spilled. Wondering if I had a way to get that information out of my girl. My dread of the day intensified. All at once I didn’t want her in the same ocean as Maddy. I kept my face as serene as hers, though, as if such a thing had never occurred to me. As if we were just two moms, neither of whom was ready to pick out our granny names.