Page 64 of The Deadbeat Next Door

I assumed she meant that she’d helped him, his partner in everything. “I’ll let you know if I need anything.” I had no intention of needing anything, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Mom,” Jenna said. “How old is this house?”

Mom looked at Jenna, her eyes wide. “It’s just fifteen years old, dear. Why?”

Jenna looked at me and winked before turning her attention back to our mother. “Has anyone ever complained of ghosts? Because I heard a lot of creaking and banging while I was trying to get to sleep last night.”

“No, Jenna,” Mom said, clearly reading that my sister was up to something. I stuffed another bite in my mouth and nudged Carrie to do the same. The sooner we finished eating, the sooner we could leave. “No one has complained about ghosts. Since your room is next door to Cody and Carrie’s on one side and Noah and Aubrey’s on the other, I assume you’re complaining about how noisy they were in a roundabout way.”

“Oh,” Jenna said, finger to her chin like she was considering. I had a mouthful of food, or I might have interjected. Might have except that would give us away. “But I don’t think it could have been either of them, because I heard a lot of moaning and panting and—”

“That’s enough, Jenna,” Noah said, giving himself away. I was glad I was chewing, otherwise my mouth might have dropped open. Aubrey turned a lovely shade of pink and stared at her plate like it held the answers to the biggest questions of the universe. “No one wants to hear about what you imagined you heard last night.”

“I do,” Jared said, practically bouncing in his seat. “I want to hear.”

“That’s enough,” Mom said. “I want to discuss something serious with you children and I want you to listen with open minds.”

May caught my eye again and mouthed oh, shit.

“Is this about that man I saw you out at dinner with last week?” Jill asked, her mouth curled in a disapproving frown. Atlanta should have been a big enough city to hold all the Reynolds without them running into each other every other day, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I was once again grateful I lived in a different state.

“Yes,” my mother said. She folded her hands on the table. “Jonas and I have been seeing each other for three weeks now and it’s serious enough that I wanted you kids to know.”

“How serious can it be after only three weeks?” Noah asked. He looked angry, which surprised me. It had been five years since our father died and our mother had every right to date again.

Mom shrugged, unfazed by Noah’s angry tone. “Serious enough that we’ve agreed to be exclusive. Serious enough that he’ll be here to have breakfast with us in just a few minutes.” Some families did Sunday dinners, ours did Sunday brunch. A big breakfast on Sunday had just always been part of our family tradition and it suited me. My mother’s blueberry pancakes were the best I’d ever had and she made grits like no one else.

“I think that’s great, Mom,” May said in a sweet tone. I couldn’t be sure if she was trying to butter up Mom to get college tuition out of her or if she was serious. May wasn’t a bad person, she just didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about other people.

“What’s he like?” Carrie said, breaking a silence that had fallen over all of us at the table. I don’t know what the others’ excuse was for the silence and the tension, but I was still trying to hurry up my exit. It was great that mom was seeing someone in a hypothetical way, but I wasn’t ready to see my mother with a man who wasn’t my father.

Mom smiled at Carrie gratefully. “He’s sixty-three-years-old, and he has three grown children, all boys. He’s a criminal defense attorney and has done well for himself. He makes me laugh every day and I’ve smiled more in the past few weeks than I had in years before I met him.”

“He sounds wonderful,” Carrie said.

“Have you been to his law office,” I asked. “Have you heard anything about him other than what he’s told you?”

Mom’s smile didn’t falter. She looked from Noah to me to Jared, who seemed preoccupied with picking the blueberries out of his pancake, and back to me. “I love that you kids are protective of me,” she said. “But I’m a grown woman. I know what I’m doing.”

“Cody’s right, Mom,” Jill said. “What do you really know about this man? If you give me his vitals I can run his credit score.”

Mom sighed. “There will be no checking credit scores or backgrounds. I was introduced to him through a mutual friend, his sister, and I’ve been to his law office and I’ve seen his house and I’ve met his children. I’m certain he’s not a gold digger. Even if he were, most of my assets are tied up in the business.”

“You’ve met his children?” Jenna said. “You met his children before you introduced him to us?”

Mom’s smile was starting to look a little brittle. “Well, he and his wife divorced more than fifteen years ago, so it was less of a shock to his children that he’d have a new girlfriend, and—”

“Girlfriend?” Noah said, his face going a bit red. Aubrey patted his arm, but he shook her off. “You didn’t tell us he was your boyfriend.”

“Is,” my mother said. “He is my boyfriend. And, quite frankly, I’m surprised at how badly all of you are taking this. You couldn’t have honestly believed I would stay single for the rest of my life.”

“Dad was the love of your life,” Jill said. “You two fought all the time, but you loved each other. I know you did.”

“We did love each other,” Mom said. “But I think you are all old enough to understand that he wasn’t the love of my life. He was one of the loves of my life and he was a good one, but he left me. He left me and I had to change my plans for the future. I didn’t go looking to fall in love, but I met Jonas and —”

“Love?” Noah said. “You’re in love with him?”

This was spiraling fast. Noah was a good guy and an even better businessman, but sometimes it was hard for him to see anything that wasn’t right in front of him or exactly the way he wanted it to be. He was fiercely loyal to our father, to the point that I thought he no longer remembered our dad’s fierce temper or the way he changed after he started making real money.

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