Page 113 of Fourth Point Of Contact

“Because my mom isn’t like that?”

“Because your mom isn’t Debra Cook. I’m telling you, if you thought it was bad when she forced you to go to church, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

He scoffed at me, but dropped the subject. We drove the rest of the way to the airport in complete silence, but my mind was on Piper the whole time. I was excited to see her, and I didn’t want to examine too closely why that was. I never got excited about women. Sure, I liked them, but that was it. Maybe this whole idea was bad. What had I done by inviting her out here? Wouldshe get ideas? Think that I wanted to start a relationship with her?

“You’re awfully quiet over there,” Chase noted as we got closer to the airport.

“I think I made a mistake.”

“With what?”

“Telling Piper about my mom being out here.”

“Okay…This is kind of the wrong time to decide that. We’re ten minutes from the airport, and she’s already on that flight.”

“I know!” I snapped, angry with myself for writing to her.

“Whoa, what caused the sudden change of heart?”

I groaned, rubbing my forehead. “Piper’s cool. You saw that, but…why the fuck did I tell her about my mom?”

“I have no fucking clue. This isn’t one of those times where I understand a fucking thing you do.”

“I didn’t even think about the fact that she might jump on that plane and come rescue me.”

“Wait, I thought you wanted that.”

I turned to him and scowled. “My mom is here.”

He widened his eyes at me. “Yeah, I’ve met her.”

“My mom is here and wants to hook me up with a woman.”

He sighed, already pissed at me. I knew this was going the long way about getting to the point, but I was hoping he would see the bigger picture. “These are already things we know. If there’s a point to any of this?—”

“I knew that and I still wrote the damn letter. She readily jumped on a plane and came out here. It’s all working out so fucking well!”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“It’s all working out so fucking well. I set a trap that would lure my mom into a state of comfort. She would spend time with Piper and fall in love with her. Then she’d get off my back and leave me the fuck alone.”

“Right,” he said slowly.

“Except, I didn’t account for the fact that Piper might very well fall for the trap as well!”

“Oh,” he frowned. “Shit.”

“Exactly. Right now, this is all fun and games, but when she starts playing house and talking to my mom?—”

“Things could go sideways fast,” he finished.

“What the fuck am I going to do now?”

He turned down the road to the airport and glanced over at me. “Well, you’re going to pick her up and reiterate that this is all for show. You’re going to tell her you never want to get married, but this is to appease your mother. And then you’re going to thank her for being so understanding about that, reaffirming that you don’t want to get married, while also letting her think that you’re not worried about any of this. That way, it doesn’t look like you’re freaking the fuck out.”

“Everything’s normal,” I murmured, getting on board with his plan.

“Right. You just pretend like you’ve already had this conversation a million times and you’re just talking it out.”

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