Page 98 of Flirting with Forever

It was a dumb answer, obtusely evasive, and he doubted it would hold Naomi at bay. But he refused to give her what she was fishing for.

Naomi cleared her throat. “Are your parents together, John?”

“Translation,” Mary said, propping her chin on her hand, “what are your thoughts on marriage?”

Naomi glared at her daughter but didn’t refute the claim.

Now John was the one clearing his throat. “No, my parents aren’t together. But maybe it would help answer some of your questions, Naomi, if I just came clean about something. I’m crazy about Mary. I think she’s the most wonderful person on planet Earth. And the idea of getting to spend time with her, grow with her, fills me with nothing but happiness. That’s what I see for our future. Us. Together.”

He said most of that right into Mary’s eyes. She went pink in the cheeks and bit her bottom lip.

“And children?” Naomi asked, her hands clenched together so tightly they were white at the knuckles, as if she already knew the blowback she’d get for this question.

“Mom!”

“Naomi!”

Naomi winced at both Mary’s and Trevor’s admonishments, but her eye contact remained steadily linked with John’s. He’d never felt more grateful to have been raised by Estrella than he was in that particular moment. Maybe his mother was a bit too nosy for her own good, but she’d never have subjected anyone to a conversation this blatantly intrusive.

And that was what ultimately got John. That Naomi felt she had the right to invade into Mary’s life like this. This was so much worse than Estrella pulling strings behind the scenes, even though it sounded like Naomi had done some of that as well. It never failed to amaze John what some people would do ostensibly in the name of their children. Looking at Naomi right now, her back stiff, her hands clenched, her face set and lined, he realized that she truly believed she was right for asking these questions. That she was doing this for Mary’s own good.

“Wow, personal question,” he said, holding her eye contact, hoping to get her to at least acknowledge with a facial expression that she was vastly overstepping. But nothing. She was completely stoic. He decided to go another route and mildly shock her. “Mary and I haven’t talked about kids yet. We’re pretty new. But knowing us, if we did decide to have a kid, I think we’d just, you know, try pretty hard to make one.”

Mary made a snorting noise and covered the bottom half of her face with her hand. Naomi flushed and pressed her lips together. John felt that he might have won that round. He’d illustrated how inappropriate her question was by providing her with an inappropriate answer.

But apparently Naomi was not to be outdone. “And if the natural way doesn’t work? She’s almost forty, you know. Are you opposed to medical intervention for pregnancy, John? It can be a long, painful slog.”

John’s mouth dropped open. He hadn’t met this woman twenty minutes ago, and she was already pumping him for information on whether or not he’d be willing to jack off into a cup? Was there no line she wouldn’t cross?

“Mom!” Mary jumped to her feet. “For the love of God!”

“You have to have a plan for this kind of thing, Mary,” Naomi said, though she was starting to lose her cool. She looked far less confident than she had just moments before. “That’s just reality.”

John was about to jump in, but Mary got there first. “You’re saying the wordreality, Mom. But what you really mean to say isfear. You’re terrified of me turning into Tiff. Of me making the same choices that she did.”

Naomi’s face went ash white. “Don’t even say that out loud.”

“I’m not trying to be melodramatic here. But don’t you get it, Mom? You can’t bully me into living my life on your terms. That doesn’t make me any safer from the boogeyman. Tiff made a hard choice at the end of her life. One I admire, not because it glorifies dying single, Mom, the way you seem to think it does. But because it was a full, independent choice she made, free from outside influence.”

Mary took a deep breath and John just gaped at her. Apparently she didn’t need defending in the least. She was doing just fine on her own.

Naomi’s mouth opened and closed. She looked utterly gobsmacked.

“You don’t want me to live in regret, I get that. You don’t want me to miss my chance at having a fulfilled life. I get that too. But you don’t get to decide what fulfills me. And, newsflash, having a kid out of fear ofnothaving a kid never made anybody very happy. Maybe you know something about that?”

“That is not why we had you, pumpkin!” Trevor spoke up finally, reaching forward and taking Mary’s hand, guiding her back down to the couch. “We had you because we wanted a child. We wanted you. The day you were born was the happiest day of either of our lives.”

Mary blinked at her father, then turned and blinked at her mother. “Then why don’t either of you treat me with respect?”

Her words sucked the oxygen out of the room.

“Mom, you’ve belittled me and ragged on me for as long as I can remember. In my twenties, I wasn’t accepting enough dates, you didn’t like Cora, you wished I wouldn’t spend so much time with Tiff. In my thirties, you wanted me to get over their deaths like that.” She snapped her fingers. “You demanded that I date, but men who were too old were not family material, men who were too young were embarrassing. You beat me down on every occasion you could, hoping to break me into wanting exactly what you want. But neither of you stopped to see whatIwanted. You’ve only been to my shop four times in six years. And I built it from scratch. You know how hard that is? You haven’t been there since the break-in. You barely offered any support to me at all on that front. And, Dad, you never stand up for me. Maybe once a year you’ll say one little thing on my behalf, but you never actually stand between me and Mom. How am I supposed to interpret that? These behaviors, they are not respectful. And I was right to tell you that I won’t be coming back until you apologize. Because even now, Mom, I finally bring a man home and you’re still not happy. It’s so clear to me now. If I get married, you’ll be telling me I’m too old to wear white or a certain cut of wedding dress. If I have a kid, you’ll always be reminding me that I’m older than the other mothers and what a shame that is. There’s no way to please you! And shame on me for thinking that there ever was! Because either you accept me, love me for who I am, Mary Freaking Trace, or you don’t get to have me in your life anymore. The end!”

Mary stood up, took one wobbly step toward the middle of the room, and John was instantly at her side, steadying her.

“Mary!” her mother called after her.

But Mary didn’t stop. She went all the way to the front hall, where she shoved her feet into her sandals and flung open the front door. John didn’t even have time to tie his shoes before he was out, after her, into the night.

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