Walk of Shame (Love Unexpectedly 4)

I’ll just say this: the hypocrisy bothers me. I love my mom. I love both my parents, fiercely. But I confess that sometimes I wish they just seemed…happier.

I’ll clarify. I wish they seemed happier together. I wish my dad didn’t look at my mom like a whipped dog, and I wish that my mom looked at my dad more.

Still, generally speaking, I know I’ve got it pretty good, so I try not to dwell.

I refocus my attention on my dad, who’s talking about some new deal he just signed for a multiuse high-rise on the West Side.

“That’s awesome,” I say, meaning it.

I didn’t get the real estate bug, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t see how hard he works. I appreciate that the empire he sits on—yes, the very empire that made it possible for me to afford my apartment, courtesy of the inheritance my grandmother left me—came from sweat and tears and long hours.

“What have you been up to, Georgie, sweetie?” Mom asks, practically the second my dad stops talking to take a sip of coffee.

“Oh, same old,” I say.

She glances up and gives me a sly smile. “I don’t suppose you’re going to bring a guy around one of these days? You haven’t dated anyone seriously since Marco.”

“Eh.” I lift my shoulders and spin my champagne flute on the table. “Nobody interesting enough to hold my attention.”

“Nobody?” my dad asks, giving me a curious glance.

I exhale through my nose, wondering how to explain that Andrew Mulroney, Esquire, doesn’t count.

He’s interesting, but not for me.

“There’s just this guy in my building. Getting under my skin a little,” I admit.

Both parents fix their attention on me at the same time. A rarity, trust me. They both love me, but usually they seem to take turns looking my way, perhaps to avoid eye contact with each other.

“Need me to beat him up?” my dad says.

My mom wrinkles her nose. “Jack, please.”

I tense at her snotty dismissal of him, but he gives me a wink. “Okay, fine. I know a guy. Better?”

I smile back. “Nah, he’s not worth the effort.”

“Who is he?”

“Andrew Mulroney, Esquire,” I say in a hoity-toity accent, miming the motion of drinking tea with my pinky finger in the air.

“Ah, a lawyer,” Dad says dismissively. “I know the type.”

“Wait, I know that name,” Mom says, tapping her black-manicured nails on her notebook. “Why do I know that name?”

I wave her comment away with the stem of my champagne flute. “He’s some celebrity divorce lawyer. Makes obscene amounts of money from busting up marriages.”

“Yes!” my mom says in recognition, pointing her pen at me and waving. “I know him. He handled Gwen Vanderman’s divorce last year. She ended up getting everything.”

“Everything but Bob, and he was the most decent thing about her,” my dad mutters.

“Gwen called him a boy genius. Made partner at an exceptionally young age,” my mom says, shifting attention back to her iPad. “He’s a good connection for you to have.”

“For what?” I ask incredulously. “I don’t even have a boyfriend, and you’re already planning my divorce?”

“This city’s all about networking,” Mom says distractedly. “Never hurts to align yourself with powerful people.”

“Oh, Andrew and I are aligned, all right,” I say, standing to refill my mimosa. “Him at one end of the battlefield, me at the other.”