Page 94 of Flirting with Forever

“Wow.” John’s eyes grew wide, his expression somber. He knew the gravity of the ask. Mary had explained to him the complicated web that held Mary, Sebastian, Via and Matty all together. The hole that Cora had left behind, the balm that Via had become for all of them. Not a replacement, but a beautiful addition to lives that had been missing Cora for far too long. “Wow. Do you want to?”

Mary nodded. “Yes. It’s been a while since I’ve been there. And I’d love to make things easier for Via, for all of them, if I can.”

John’s somber expression softened infinitesimally. “Sweetest person on planet Earth,” he told her.

Mary smiled. “Will you come too? For the weekend? It’s just up in White Plains. We could get an Airbnb or something. Maybe Estrella could watch Ruth? Oh! We could invite Fin and Ty and Ky to come too. They don’t have to do the whole cemetery thing, but they could hang out with us in the meantime. What do you think?”

John nodded. “I think,” he said carefully, “that White Plains isn’t very far from Connecticut.”

She frowned. “You want to meet my parents.”

“Well. No,” he answered with his patent honesty, making Mary laugh. “But I wonder if maybe we shouldn’t end the standoff with your mother. It wouldn’t have to be a huge deal. We could just pop in for an hour. Get things moving again.”

“I’ll think about it,” Mary promised. The weekend would be emotional enough without adding a trip to her mother’s house. But maybe he was right. Maybe it was time to see if things could be repaired. Mary had always been the odd man out at her parents’ house. But maybe John would be the odd man out as well, just like with their friends. And they could be odd together. Emphasis on together.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ASMUCHASJohn didn’t understand the desire to ever leave New York City, he had to admit, all that cement sure seemed to trap the heat. As soon as they left the city limits, the sizzling temperatures just sort of sedated themselves, tumbling down into the manageable eighties range. That was nice.

John and Mary rode the Metro-North with Tyler, Fin, Kylie, Via, Sebastian, Matty and his dog, Crabby. Sebastian’s truck was apparently in the shop, otherwise some of them would have driven with him, but John, a native New Yorker to his bones, was infinitely more comfortable on a train than he was in someone else’s pickup truck.

They hadn’t all been able to get seats together, but they were scattered in twos and threes up and down the train car, and John had to admit, that just like other times he’d spent with this group, he felt like he was part of a scrum of chattering middle schoolers on a field trip. They were laughing at one another’s jokes, giddy at fleeing the hot city, at traveling in a flock. It was fun.

Matty was pretty much the mayor of the train car. He walked up and down the aisle, checking on all the members of his group, even talking with some people he’d never met before. He obviously considered himself to be Crabby’s ambassador, explaining to anyone within earshot that Crabby was a good dog who’d never bite anyone and they’d had to pay extra for him to get a ticket on the train car. Also, that no matter how good a dog he was, his dad had insisted that Crabby had to stay parked between his feet the entire time, otherwise Matty would have brought him around to meet people.

John was just as charmed as the rest of the train car, and he finally fully understood why this trip had been so important to Mary. As much as each couple was separate from one another, they were also all meshed and bonded in a hundred different ways. Seb and Tyler had grown up best friends. Same with Via and Fin. Kylie was closest to her brother, but now that he and Fin were together, they seemed to be a real family unit. Kylie and Matty both loved Mary to distraction, obviously as comfortable with her as they were with their guardians. The most obvious part was how much each and every person in this group loved Mary. They were protective and indulgent, lighting up when she was near. She did that to people. Lit them up.

Of course they would want Mary near at a time like this. Who wouldn’t?

They got off the train in the White Plains station and the group split up. Matty, Via, Seb and Crabby waved goodbye and hopped in a car with Matty’s grandparents. The rest of the group walked the quarter mile to their Airbnb, chosen for its proximity to the train station. All of them had had work on Friday, so it was Saturday midmorning that they settled into their rooms at the Airbnb, the commute having been about only two hours total. The cemetery visit was set for tomorrow, so all of Saturday stretched out before them.

An hour after they arrived, John found himself in a hammock, a beer in his hand and Mary plastered along his side.

“Why are you frowning?” she asked him, her fingers tracing his eyebrows.

“It’s so quiet,” he complained. He was made nervous by the rolling stretch of green grass below them, by the lack of traffic noise. It was probably his imagination, but he thought the sky to be a disconcerting blue out here in the suburbs.

Mary laughed. “Would it make you feel better if I slammed a few car doors and shouted at some passerby?”

He laughed too. “Infinitely.”

John fiddled with Mary’s golden hair, took a long sip of his beer and decided to tell her the real truth about why he was frowning. “I was supposed to go on vacation with my dad this weekend.”

Mary stiffened. “What? Oh, my gosh, John. I didn’t mean to mess up your plans!”

“You didn’t,” he reassured her. “I’d already said no a couple of weeks ago. It’s just funny, knowing that he and Maddox are off somewhere bonding, and I’m not there. Not that it’s the first time it’s ever happened. They vacation together every year or so, and have since Maddox was a kid. But it’s the first time since we reconnected that I’ve been on vacation somewhere else at the same time. Usually I’m too busy working myself into the ground to give it much thought.”

“Why did you say no to the trip?”

John was quiet for a while, gathering his thoughts. “Honestly, there were a lot of reasons. Wanting to spend time with you was probably the most obvious one.” He paused. “Mary, I’m sure it’s quite clear to you, but I don’t have a ton of money. Don’t get me wrong. I’m good with money. I’m responsible. But New York is expensive, and public defenders don’t get loan forgiveness until the ten-year mark. I’ve got a ways to go yet.”

She snuggled closer to him, but he could feel her tension. “I know that.”

“Right. Well. My dad is very rich. And whenever he invites me to do something with him, it’s way too expensive for me to ever pay my own way.”

“So you have to decide if you’re gonna skip it or let him pay for you.”

He squeezed her close, unsurprised that she’d instantly understood. She was smart like that. “Exactly. Can you guess how many times I’ve ever let him pay for me?”

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