Page 130 of Cloudy With a Chance of Bad Decisions

“That can’t possibly be true.” My cheeks were only growing redder by the second.

“Considering…I’m surprised you’re in such a foul mood today.” Mom was concerned. Rightfully so. I’d done my damndest not to drop my guard around her for years. “Did he do something?” Mom paused, sobering. “You know you can tell me, right? That I’ll help you.”

Dregs left over from Brendon.

Like tea leaves in the bottom of an empty cup.

She felt guilty for not telling me to leave him.

But we both knew I wouldn’t have listened.

“Alex didn’t do anything wrong,” I was quick to reassure. “He was a perfect gentleman.”

“Maybe not aperfectgentleman,” she tacked on, tension gone, her eyes dancing.

If that was an innuendo I was going to pull my hair out.

“He’s…I mean…” Christ, what the fuck was I supposed to reply? “Alex is…nice.” That’s what she’d told me before. And fuck, she’d been right.

“I like him much more than Brendon,” Mom said without an ounce of shame. My heart squeezed, as I nodded jerkily. “He’s kinder to you.”

“Brendon wasn’tmean.”

I wasn’t sure why I was still lying about that.

Pride, maybe.

The last thing I had left.

“Honey,” Mom silenced me with a single look. I wilted, shrinking over my eggs with a groan. Clearly she saw through that too.

“Okay, so Brendon wasn’tparticularlyaffectionate,” I admitted reluctantly. I had literally just been thinking about this so this line of questioning felt far too raw. “But I’m not—I mean… Alex and I aren’t dating. Officially.”

“Youcouldbe.”

“Wecould, except the fact that he literally told me he’s not looking for a relationship. And I’m not either. So—actually?” Okay, I was starting to sound a bit hysterical, voice rising in pitch. “We can’t. Because we don’t want to. Because we can’t. I told him I don’t want it. I literally—laid down the law. I told him I?—”

“Oh, sweetie,” Mom pulled her gloves off, bacon officially abandoned. She held her arms out, her bright blue dress beckoning me toward it like a beacon of motherhood. “Come here.”

“The eggs are going to burn.” I was fragile enough that if she squeezed I was sure to crack.

“Fuck the eggs.”

My jaw fell open.Since when did she swear?But then again, I’d caught her high as a kite last night, so maybe I shouldn’t be all that surprised to see evidence that she was an adult before she was my mother.

I fell into her embrace rigidly. It wasn’t like the way I’d melted into Alex last night when he’d had me tucked tight against his sweat-damp muscles, compliments murmured alongside the kisses he’d left on my skin. But this was my mom. So it was still pretty damn good.

This was one thing phone calls didn’t replace.

Hugs.

Mom rubbed my back and I had to force myself not to worry that she’d gotten stray drops of bacon on me. Bacon essence. She’d been wearing gloves—it had to be fine, right? At least, that’s what I told myself as I finally gave in, curling around her tiny form with a weighty sigh.

There wasn’t a problem in the world that one of my mom’s hugs couldn’t fix.

“It’s okay to change your mind, George,” she said softly. “You know that, right? That you can?—”

Joe came into the kitchen, interrupting our embarrassingly emotional moment with the emotional intelligence of a block of wood. The door slammed against the wall and he grunted, hefting a giant-ass cooler in his arms.

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