“I truly like that woman,” Mom says with a smile. “She’s got a brain in her head, and she doesn’t just smile and do your bidding like the other bimbos you’ve dated.”
“I don’t think they were bimbos,” I reply, but she just shakes her head.
“None of them were wife material. You don’t want a woman who’s more concerned with the way she looks than she is about having a career. Those girls didn’t want a career, they wanted a rich man—you—to swoop in and take care of them.”
She’s not wrong.
“Well, it obviously never worked out with any of them,” I say. “And thank God for it, because London is absolutely the woman for me. Like you said, she’s intelligent, and funny. She loves an adventure. She’s not afraid to call me out on my shit.”
“Finally, you’ve fallen in love.”
I nod, but don’t reply, and Mom narrows her eyes at me.
“You have told her you love her, haven’t you?”
“She knows I love her.”
“Dear God, how did I manage to raise a couple of idiots?” She shakes her head and looks to the ceiling, as if the answers are written there. “How is she supposed to know? Because she can read your mind?”
“I’ve mentioned love before.”
“But have you said I love you, London?”
“No.”
“And why not?”
I shift in my chair, uncomfortable with this line of questioning. “That’s a good question. She hasn’t said it either, you know.”
“Youth is wasted on the young,” she mutters. “Do you know, my sweet boy, that I would give literally anything in this world to be able to tell your father that I love him, even one more time? He was the love of my life, and I waited a long time for him to come into my life. He took his sweet time about it.
“I was almost thirty when I finally met him, and let me tell you, in those days I was well on my way to being a spinster. There are times that I feel like we got cheated out of so much time together because we met so late.”
“I didn’t realize that.”
“True story. And then he was just gone, in the blink of an eye. London is here, Finn, and you love her. So, you have to tell her.”
“What if she doesn’t feel the same?”
She sits back in her chair and smiles at me, using that smile that women have when the men they’re talking to are clueless.
“She does. I know that for sure. I’ve seen the way she looks at you, dear boy. Women don’t look at men like that unless they’ve already planned the wedding in their head ten different ways.”
“Wedding?” I swallow hard and shift in the chair again. “I haven’t thought about marriage.”
“Yet.” She leans forward to catch my gaze with her own. “You haven’t thought about it yet. But you will, because I didn’t raise my boys to carry on with a woman without marrying her.”
“This is the twenty-first century,” I remind her, but she shakes her head stubbornly.
“I don’t care. If you love her, and want to be with her, you’ll marry her, and I don’t care if you’re turning forty soon, you’re still my child.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She smiles softly. “My baby is about to be forty. How did that happen?”
“Time passes.”
“Too quickly. You’ve done some amazing things with your forty years, Finn.”
“Thank you.”
“Now it’s time to settle down and give me some more grandchildren.”
“Are we going to talk about this all night? Because if so, I have other things to do.”
“Fine, then.” She waves me off. “Are you excited about your party?”
“I’m not sure why I need a party.”
“It’s a milestone birthday, and it’ll be fun to celebrate it. Now, I think I’d like to get out of the house for a few hours.”
“Okay.” I stand with her and smile down at her when she lifts her handbag. “Where are we going?”
“Take your mother to the movies. Nothing dirty or scary, now.”
“I can do that.” I lift my arm, inviting her to hold on to it as I escort her out to my car. “This is a fun surprise.”
“Life should be full of fun surprises, my boy.”
Chapter Fourteen
~London~
I’ve never been so exhausted in my life. Not physically. I’ve been so physically exhausted before that I couldn’t walk. No, this is a mental exhaustion that’s settled around me like fog around the Brooklyn Bridge, and it doesn’t feel like it’s going to dissipate anytime soon.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that I’ve had a wink of sleep on this flight from L.A. to New York. I mean, that would just be silly. In fact, I’ve hardly slept at all since I left Finn’s condo just over two days ago.
It’s ridiculous.
Suddenly I can’t sleep when I’m not with Finn? I’ve been sleeping fine without him for thirty-two years, but now I can’t.