Page 41 of The Charade

"Miriam Cohen is your mom?" Mr. Hastings’s blue eyes went wide, and his expression was one of surprise. "Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time."

"You know our mom?" Elyse asked.

Mr. Hastings rubbed the back of his neck with his towel. "If she's the same Miriam Cohen who went to the academy back in the day, then I'd have to say that your mother and I were very good friends."

"You were friends with their mom?" Carter asked, mirroring my thoughts. "Now that's a coincidence."

Mr. Hastings nodded. "I know it's probably difficult to imagine that an old fart like me could be the same age as your beautiful mother. But yeah, we go way back." He shook his head contemplatively, as if taking a stroll down memory lane in his mind. "I didn't realize she had kids the same age as mine. We lost touch through the years, but I hadn't heard of her marrying."

"Oh, that's because she didn't," I said. As far as she'd told us, our mom had a one-time, one-night stand with my mystery father and ended up with two miracles—Elyse and me—because of it.

"Of course," Mr. Hastings hurried to say. "I certainly didn't mean anything by it. I mean, I of all people should know you don't need to be married in order to have children."

He was probably referring to how Carter had been born to his mother and not known his dad for the first eight years of his life.

"You say your mom’s a fashion designer now?" Mr. Hastings narrowed his eyes and seemed to take in Elyse’s and my appearance, like he was comparing us to the memory he must have had of our mother.

"She's just getting ready for Milan's Fashion Week," Elyse said, a smile stretching across her lips. "She's been getting a lot of notice lately, which has been really exciting for our family."

"That's so good to hear. I always knew Miriam was going to do great things one day." The look of pride in his eyes told me that he really must have been a good friend to our mom.

"We're really proud of her." I smiled.

"I bet. And are you two juniors like Cambrielle?"

"No, we're seniors."

"Seniors?" Mr. Hastings’s eyebrows shot up. "So you're Carter’s, and Nash’s age?"

Had he assumed that we were Cambrielle's age since we'd walked in with her?

"Yeah, we're seniors," I said, not used to my friend's parents asking so many questions. Usually, a quickhiandwhat's your namewas all they ever cared about.

Maybe he was showing more interest since he'd been such good friends with our mother?

Though, apparently, not good enough of friends for her to ever mention him to us. But my mom didn't really talk about anyone from high school.

Mr. Hastings glanced at his watch. "Ah, it's already five o'clock. Looks like I better hit the showers so I'm ready for my hot date with my girlfriend."

His girlfriend?

But wasn't he married?

Seeming to notice my shock, Carter laughed and said, "He's talking about his wife, Dawn. They're weird, though, and like to call each other girlfriend and boyfriend."

Mr. Hastings patted Carter on the shoulder. "Gotta keep the romance alive somehow, bud."

"Whatever," Carter said, but when his gaze briefly met mine, a bunch of butterflies swarmed my stomach as I remembered standing close to him in his room.

Pretty sure Carter didn't need any tips from his dad about keeping romance alive, because just one look from him had me swooning all over again.

But I tried to push those thoughts away because he didn’t need to know this.

"It was great to meet you," Mr. Hastings said, looking at Elyse and me again. "You'll have to tell your mother I said hi the next time you talk to her."

"Will do," Elyse said, smiling at Mr. Hastings.

Mr. Hastings left, and it looked like Carter was going to say something to Elyse and me when Cambrielle came back over to us after shooting a few hoops with Nash and the other guys.

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