Wrapped Up in You (Heartbreaker Bay, #8)(30)

Kel’s expression didn’t change.

Cue another awkward strained silence, and Kel’s mom’s smile faded. “Well. You didn’t come here for this. You came to eat. What can I get you?”

As they placed their orders, his mom nodded, but never took her eyes off Kel, like maybe he was Christmas and summer vacation all in one. “It really is good to see you,” she told him softly.

Kel closed his eyes and shook his head.

His mom straightened and nodded. “Right. I’ll get your order in.” And then she was gone.





Chapter 11




Don’t let your head sell you out



Kel couldn’t believe it. Of all the pancake joints in all the world . . . He’d had to find the one where his mom worked. He’d watched the light in his mom’s eyes fade before she headed back to the kitchen and told himself he didn’t owe her a single damn thing.

But he still felt like a big bag of dicks. There was a time in his life when he would have welcomed her wanting to see him. But when she’d waited until he was nearly an adult to try to explain to him why she’d never come for her own children, he’d decided he no longer wanted to know.

Did that make him an asshole? Yeah. Probably.

And never in a million years had he thought he’d run into her like this, by complete accident. He’d purposely avoided the places he thought there might be a chance of seeing her.

Fat lot of good that had done him because here she was, and she’d looked at him as if he’d been the best thing she’d seen all year. When he’d been little she’d looked at him like that, like he was the sun and the moon. Her entire universe.

But he was no longer young and everything had changed.

“You okay?” Ivy asked quietly.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She didn’t break eye contact or let him get away with answering the question with another question. In fact, she—unlike anyone else in his life—never let him get away with much. “Obviously, there’s a problem between you two,” she said.

“The problem is that when I needed a mom, I didn’t have one.”

“And now you, what, don’t need a mom?”

“No.”

She nodded, accepting this easily, more easily than anyone he’d ever told. “She seems really sweet,” she said.

Kel let out a low, mirthless laugh just as his mom reappeared with hot chocolate, which she set in front of him.

He looked down at the steaming mug, his chest pinching at all the memories that slammed into him. This had been a tradition. On cold days when he’d come home from school, she’d make him hot chocolate. Up until the day he’d come home from school to no hot chocolate because she’d been in bed with another man. He pushed the mug away. “I didn’t order this.”

She clasped her hands together. “It used to be your favorite.”

“Yes,” he said. “When I was ten.”

His mom’s face flushed with embarrassment. Across the table Ivy slid the mug toward herself. “Well, I’m not ten, but my mom never once made me hot chocolate. No sense in this going to waste, right?” She took a sip. “Wow.”

His mom beamed at her. “You like it?”

“It’s the most amazing hot chocolate I’ve ever had,” Ivy said.

Kel rolled his eyes and Ivy kicked him beneath the table. Hard.

“I added my special secret ingredient,” his mom said. “A pinch of cinnamon.”

“It’s delicious. Thank you.”

“You’re so welcome.” His mom turned to him and shyly pulled something from one of her apron pockets.

Her phone. Which she opened to her photos.

Perfect. “Mom, this isn’t really a great time—”

“Aw,” Ivy said, eyes on the picture of Remy and the new baby. “So cute! Who is this?”

“That’s Kel’s sister,” his mom said. “And her new baby, Harper. This was taken right in the birth room. Harper was two minutes old.”

“Precious,” Ivy said softly, looking and sounding very sincere.

Kel had seen the picture. Remy had sent it, and he’d thought the same thing then that he thought now. The baby was red, mottled, and covered in . . . well, he wasn’t sure exactly what. Some sort of goop. Precious wasn’t exactly the word he’d use.

“And this was yesterday,” his mom said, thumbing to the next pic. “In her daddy’s arms.”

And okay, the baby was pretty cute now. She had Remy’s eyes and Ethan’s smile. And just looking at her made Kel smile, which was a real feat at the moment.

Then his mom slid her finger across the screen to the next pic, which was of her and Henry wearing Best Grandma Ever and Best Grandpa Ever T-shirts, holding Harper.

“Love the shirts,” Ivy said.

They were smiling down at the baby like real doting grandparents. The only person in the family missing from the photos was Kel.

His own doing.

His mom gently touched his arm, making him realize he’d frozen in place, staring at the phone. “My break’s in thirty minutes,” she said. “I could come and sit down, maybe catch up a little.”

“Can’t,” he said. “I’ve got to get Ivy home.”