“Really, Mom?” I ask, disdain thick in my voice. “Are you really going to do this today?”

“Do what, honey? I’m just asking about your plans. That’s all.”

Lance lays a hand on my arm. He looks at my mother. “Whoever Mariah chooses to be the father of her children will be a lucky man.”

“Are you saying you’re not up for the job?” She doesn’t even try to pretend she’s not putting him on the spot. “Is that what I’m hearing?”

“Mother,” I growl, glad I’m no longer holding Betsy. My fists are clenched at my sides as I watch her play one of her maddening games.

“I think you should let your daughter decide who she wants to procreate with and you should worry more about whatever is burning in the kitchen,” Lance shrugs.

As soon as he says it, I smell the odor of burnt toast. Mom must too because she gets to her feet and heads towards the kitchen.

“Babies come when the time is right, but I’m starting to wonder if she will ever find a man to settle down with,” Mom says dryly like she just commented on the color of the sky.

“That’s none of your business,” I sputter.

Lance smiles at my mom. “Maybe Mariah is pickier than most women. Maybe when she does settle down, it won’t end in divorce.”

With her eyes narrowed in our direction, Mom heads through a doorway to the right. The room heaves a collective sigh as soon as she’s out of sight.

“You have to cut her some slack,” Chrissy says. “She’s under a lot of stress right now.”

I must not have heard her correctly. “She’s under stress?”

“Yes. You know she doesn’t handle it well.”

“And how does that make up for the other years I’ve been alive?” I ask.

“It’s not you, Mariah,” she contends. “She just can’t deal normally like you or I can.”

“It is me and that’s fine. It can always be me,” I shrug. “I don’t care anymore. That’s where you both lose.”

There’s something freeing about putting that into the world. A weight is lifted off my shoulders as I watch Chrissy’s reaction to my words.

“Mariah …”

“No, Chrissy,” I say, shaking my head. “No.”

“I …” Chrissy looks at Betsy on Eric’s lap before looking back at me. “I’d like to talk to you alone one of these days. Do you think that’s possible?”

There’s no easy answer to this. I have so much to say to her and yet nothing at all. So many years’ worth of questions but none of the answers even matter anymore.

I look up at Lance and he smiles down at me.

“Maybe,” I say to Chrissy. “Let’s talk about it later.”

Chrissy agrees, forcing a smile. “Come on, Eric. Let’s check on Mom.”

Lance’s chin dips as soon as they disappear. “I’d like to talk to you alone one of these days. Do you think that’s possible?”

“You’re talking to me alone right now.”

“Talking was a euphemism.”

I giggle, twisting in his arms so I’m facing him. If there is one easy part of today, it’s being with him.

He looks at me with an incredulous, almost reverent glimmer in his eye and the entirety of it—that look, his gorgeous face, the way he stood up for me today and let me lean on him—is too much.

I’m sure I could’ve faced this on my own, but it was so much easier with him by my side.

Every brick I’ve stacked between us is starting to fall down. It’s getting harder and harder to remember why I shouldn’t want anything to do with Lance. It’s becoming impossible to tell myself to stay away from someone I’ve been attracted to for so long, especially now that he’s showing me so many sides of himself.

He rests his chin on the top of my head, lacing his fingers together at the small of my back. It feels good to be able to rest on him for a moment, feel the strength of his arms around me.

“What the fuck is wrong with your mom?” he asks.

“I warned you,” I giggle.

“You couldn’t have prepared me for that. Wow.”

“I’m never prepared, even though I know what’s coming.”

He kisses me just behind the ear. I’m running on adrenaline and his touches; his sweet little gestures are enough to make my head nearly explode.

“You’re driving me crazy,” I breathe, feeling my body go limp in his arms. “Seriously, Lance. I can’t take it.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Be a dick,” I laugh. “Stop being sweet and kind and touching me …”

He rolls his hips ever-so-slightly against me. “Do you feel how hard I am for you?”

“I think you’re always hard.”

“This isn’t for some app girl or another version of you. I’m so fucking hard for you, Mariah Malarkey, that I can’t stand it. But I will stand it because you hold all the cards. Why I’m okay with that, I have no fucking clue and it might be my undoing,” he chuckles.

Tags: Adriana Locke The Gibson Boys Romance
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