Dream Chaser (Dream Team, #2)(104)

“I wonder if she knows she’s lookin’ in a frickin’ mirror at herself thirty years older and complimenting her own reflection?” Porter asked Boone.

Boone started laughing.

Anne-Marie snapped, “Porter!”

“Darlin’, she’s got blue eyes, you got green, and thirty years on her. She’s not blind,” Porter returned. He turned to me and winked. “We Sadler men have a definite type.”

Now it was me who started laughing.

“Porter!” Anne-Marie snapped again.

“What?” he asked her.

“You don’t discuss a lady’s age…ever, and you don’t tell your son’s girlfriend she looks like his mother,” she pointed out.

“Again, she’s not blind,” Porter pointed out in return.

“Oh, my goodness, what is she thinking of us?” Anne-Marie asked the ceiling.

It hit me then that they might be nervous too.

“I think your husband is funny and I think it’s an amazing compliment that anyone would say I look like you,” I told her. And when she turned her attention to me, I finished, “And that isn’t blowing sunshine because I really like your son and I really want you to like me. You’re just that stunning.”

Her face warmed again, and I had a feeling it wasn’t because I told her she was stunning.

Okay, so maybe this wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought.

Maybe it was going to be awesome.

If we could steer clear of the stripper thing.

At least for a while.

Like, as long as it took for me to get my house-flipping biz up and running and I wasn’t stripping anymore.

Porter cleared his throat.

Boone squeezed my thigh.

Porter gave us a break by talking about the Phillies’ chances that season (they sounded grim). Then Boone and he had a mild argument about how Boone was now a fan of the Rockies, which Porter clearly thought was an alarming display of disloyalty. Boone obviously disagreed. My drink was served, their oysters were served, and we all ordered our mains.

After the server walked away, casual as you please, before slipping an oyster delicately in her mouth, Anne-Marie noted, “So, Boone tells us you dance at a gentlemen’s club?”

Oh shit.

Boone got tense.

My body got so tight I thought it would snap in two.

“Annie,” Porter growled.

“As I shared earlier, if she thinks she needs to be embarrassed about that, I don’t know why,” Anne-Marie said shortly to her husband. “And she needs to know we feel that way and get it over with.”

She looked to me.

And then she laid it out.

“When I was young and in college, I thought my mother’s generation did all the work. Burned their bras, yada yada yada.” She circled her now-empty oyster shell. “Then the first job I had, my boss called me ‘Sunshine.’ The whole time I was there, even in meetings, he’d say, ‘Sunshine brought this to our attention.’ Or, ‘Sunshine found it in the brief.’ It was humiliating.”

“Oh my God, I’ll bet,” I replied.

“I worked for a lawyer. I was a paralegal,” she informed me. “I asked him to stop. And he told me to stop being so sensitive. It was a compliment. I had a sunny disposition. I tried to explain it didn’t feel like a compliment and again asked him to refrain. He was not pleased I was telling him how to behave, even if what I was telling him was how I wished to be addressed. Within a month, I was laid off. But before that, it was clear I’d been branded a troublemaker. In order to stay employed, the next time something like that happened at another job, and it happened, I kept my mouth shut.”

That was the worst.

“I’m so sorry,” I said like I meant it, because I so totally did.

“What I’m saying is, Ryn, that a woman who judges a woman on the decisions she makes about her life is no woman at all. Even if you grew up your whole life wanting to be an exotic dancer, that would be your choice and the instant a woman makes another woman feel badly about her choices, or worse, tries to take them away, we’ve lost.”

“Are we at war?” Porter asked conversationally.

“Not with you, you’re enlightened,” Anne-Marie answered blithely.

“Well, thank God for that,” Porter muttered, reaching for his beer.

“I’m glad you understand,” I said to Anne-Marie.

But Porter answered, “My wife’s point is, sweetheart, there’s nothing to understand.”

Oh God.

This was great!

Because Boone’s parents, especially his mom (but also his dad), were totally awesome.

I smiled at him then at her.

They smiled back.

Then Anne-Marie’s face turned stern when she aimed it at her son. “And now you can just relax.”

“I will remind you that I asked you not to bring that up with Ryn,” he returned, very unhappily.

Uh-oh.

“And you asked that because she’s clearly embarrassed by it and I wanted to set her mind at ease,” Anne-Marie shot back.

“I still asked you to let her bring it up, and I didn’t think that was too much to ask,” Boone retorted.

Anne-Marie looked a trifle abashed.

But only a trifle.