No Kissing Allowed (No Kissing Allowed #1)(37)
I grinned as I listened, and then noticed Mom veer toward a black Tahoe. Not at all the old red truck Eric had for most of my childhood. “Don’t tell me she forced you to get rid of Judith?” Eric liked to name his cars old-woman names. I used to tell him he should choose something hot like Candy, but he said he wanted something dependable, and women named Candy were anything but dependable.
He sighed. “She broke down once, and that was the end of it. Your mother refused to ride in Judith again, which might sound nice, except I like her to keep me company on occasion.”
I smiled at Mom. “So you bought a Tahoe so Mom would keep you company? How romantic.”
Eric shrugged. “I’ll be alone when I’m dead, and there are very few people I like. What can I say? I prefer to keep the people I like close.”
“Alone when you’re dead, huh? Better not tell Pastor Wilkins you said that.”
He laughed. “Yeah, well, it’ll be our little secret.”
Aidan placed our bags in the back of the Tahoe and opened my door, earning a grin from Mom. Then she slipped into the seat beside me. “You sit up front, Aidan. Stretch those long legs.”
She winked at me as he took his seat beside Eric, both men’s postures so tight I wondered if I’d made a terrible decision throwing him on them like this. Eric started down the highway, and Mom clapped her hands. “Well, now, let’s see. What have you missed? Lexie just had twins, but there are rumors the father is in question. They’d been having trouble, you see. Trudy said they went to that fancy in vitro doctor in Atlanta. Then poof, she’s pregnant. With twins! I don’t know. Jack sure travels a lot. It’s possible, but Trudy wouldn’t breathe a word about it if it were true. You know she’s all about image.”
Trudy was Mom’s eldest sister, and Lexie was one of my cousins, so both would be at our house for Thanksgiving.
“Mom, it’s not uncommon for those who get in vitro to become pregnant with multiples. I’m sure that’s what happened. Y’all need to stop gossiping so much.” And there it was—y’all. It was like coming back to the South put an injection of Southern lingo straight into my brain. Welcome home, here you go. Here’s some good ole Southern-speak. You’ll be right as rain.
I caught Eric’s gaze from the rearview mirror. He was silently warning me. Mom was volatile on a good day. She cried or yelled at a moment’s notice. Eric and I had learned not to push her buttons. Or mention that she took Prozac. God forbid.
Forcing a smile on my face, I switched subjects. “Tell me about Madison and Emma.” Maddie and Emma were sisters and the only two cousins I actually liked, partially because they were both wonderful, but also because they were outcasts like me. Maddie had come out sometime around senior year of high school and had been in a committed relationship ever since. And Emma was married to a short black man. I still wasn’t sure what offended her mother more—that Jayden was black or that he was short. But he was an amazing husband, and truly, that’s all that should matter.
Mom shook her head. “Well, about the same. Poor Beth is beside herself, but what can she do? We can only do so much for our children.” She peered over at me as if to say, yep, look how you turned out. Fantastic. But then her gaze switched up to Aidan and her face changed, a hint of something there that wasn’t before. Like curiosity or maybe hope, and I wished I could dispel her hope for a June wedding right now. Whatever this was, it wasn’t that.
I pulled my phone from my bag, telling myself that I was going to check the time and shove it back into its spot in my purse, but I couldn’t stop myself from checking my text messages. A smile spread across my face as I read the latest message.
Aidan: Did I mention that you look amazing today?
My heart swelled until I realized that Mom had stopped talking and was reading over my shoulder. Her eyes brightened as she peered up at me, then she settled into her seat, her gaze out her window, a warm smile on her face.
We reached our long driveway, and I grinned at the sight of our large white Victorian-style home. The house had been my great-grandparents’ and held all the bangs and bruises of an old house. The roof leaked no matter how often they had it fixed. The water took forever to heat up. And at night you could almost always hear some animal scurrying in the attic. Still, it was home, and seeing it after all these months made my heart happy.
Eric parked in the detached garage he’d built years ago. He and Aidan had barely spoken, and I wondered what was causing the issue.
Maybe his age. Maybe he sensed that we were hiding something. Or maybe it all had to do with Aidan being male and me being his daughter. I’d only ever brought Blaine home to meet my parents, and he’d grown up in Birmingham, like me. There was something reassuring about knowing what a person looked like in diapers. It made them less intimidating—less of a threat. That had to be it. They’d never seen Aidan in diapers.
The thought made me giggle, and he poked my side as we walked up the steps to our wraparound front porch. “What?”
“Nothing. Just…you’re unexpected.”
He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “So are you.”
A smile played at my lips as I peered back up, only to find Mom in the doorway, watching our exchange.
“I’m so glad you’re here, Aidan,” she said, her eyes shiny.