Cuff Me(66)

“Yeah?” Her voice was too high. Squeaky.

Vincent’s mother moved to the kitchen table, sitting down as she placed her water glass in front of her. Then she tapped the finger gently with one finger. “Sit.”

Jill sat.

“Tell me.”

It was a command, but a gentle one.

Jill didn’t have to ask what Maria meant—instinctively she knew that the older woman meant tell her everything.

And incredibly… she wanted to.

Jill pushed her glass aside, folded her hands, and placed them gently on the table in front of her. “I’m not marrying Tom.”

Maria merely nodded. Go on.

“We called it off before the California trip. It was mutual—I mean truly mutual, not just one-of-us-is-trying-to-save-face mutual.”

Jill’s thumb rubbed against the underside of the ring. Tight. So uncomfortably tight. But not for much longer.

She told Maria about how things had been weird with her and Vincent, but not in a way she could describe. She told her about the half conversations, and the bickering that felt more personal than usual.

She told her about that moment in the hall when Vincent had touched her cheek.

Maria watched Jill carefully, but Jill watched Maria just as carefully.

If anyone knew what was going on—really going on—with Vincent, it would be his mother.

But the Moretti matriarch had a wicked good poker face.

And then Jill got to the part about the park bench the other day.

“I asked him straight out if he wanted me,” Jill said, looking at her thumbs. “I was tired of all the weird dancing around each other. I just wanted it out there.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “But now I wish it wasn’t out there.”

“Nonsense.”

She opened her eyes and looked at Maria. “Nonsense?”

“It was good of you to put an end to the games,” she said, reaching across the table. “You two have been playing them for far, far too long.”

“Only a few weeks,” Jill grumbled.

Maria laughed softly. “My dear. Don’t start lying to yourself now.”

Jill’s lips rolled inward in denial of what Maria was getting at. This thing with her and Vin—it was new.

Wasn’t it?

Deep down, Jill suspected she knew better. Knew that whatever was between her and Vin had always been, well… more.

But that didn’t mean she knew how to define it.

And she certainly didn’t know what to do about it.

“I worry about all my children,” Maria said, somewhat absently. “Luc and his secret ghosts. Anthony and his pressure to be everything to everyone. Elena—I worry that she’s spent so much time toughening her outer layers that her inner layers are unreachable. Marc, I worry that he’s too good—too trusting of people—and that he’ll get burned. But Vincent… I worry about Vincent most of all.”

Jill looked up in surprise. “Why? He’s so—”

She broke off, unsure of the word that she was looking for. Self-sufficient? Independent?

“He knows how to take care of himself,” Jill finished. “He doesn’t need anyone.”

Maria’s smile was a little sad. “I believe that’s what he wants everyone to think. Perhaps even believes it himself.”

Jill was skeptical. “With all due respect… I’ve been chipping away at Vincent’s crusty layers for years, trying to figure out if there was some traumatic incident that made him so—”

“Guarded?” Maria replied.

“Ah, sure, we’ll go with that,” Jill said. “But as far as I can find, there are no deaths in his past, no schoolyard bullying, no dramatic heartbreak, no secret lack of confidence born of feeling inadequate in a family of champions. Nothing that would explain why he’s so closed off.”

Maria traced a finger up and down her water glass, but she said nothing.

Don’t pry. Do not pry, Jill. He’ll never forgive you if you ask his mother—

“Is there something?” Jill heard herself ask Maria. “Something that happened to make him… guarded?”

Jill went with Maria’s word choice, since her default of antisocial jerk wasn’t quite how every mother hoped to hear her son described.

“I don’t know,” Maria said finally. “I don’t think so. I suppose it’s always possible that he’d be keeping some hidden hurt from all of us, but I think maybe it’s subtler than that. No one event that we can put a Band-Aid on.”

“So there’s nothing,” Jill said, shoulders slumping. “No way to fix it? Not that he needs fixing, it’s just—”

Maria sighed and stood, picking up her water glass and taking it to the counter. She turned around and crossed her arms, looking strangely hesitant, as though she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure she should.

“Maria,” Jill said quietly. “Please—I care about him.”

The older woman’s face softened considerably. “I know you do, sweetie. It’s why I’m here. To ask if you were sure—really sure—about this Tom fellow. But I see you got that sorted out on your own, so the last thing I’ll say…”

She took a deep breath. “Vincent was shy as a child. Not horribly so. Not enough to be picked on, but his quietness could be off-putting, I think. He’s always been an observer. The boy that watched before joining in. But you know how children are…”