Page 23 of Make Mine Sweet
“He always buys a pie you made.” At first it was just a theory, but now I’ve got ample proof.
She looks away. “Probably so he can do something weird to it. Like spit in it just to spite me.”
“How would that spite you?”
“Just stop. You know how I feel about him.”
Right now, when her face is flushed from talking with him, and a minute ago she shivered because their fingers brushed against each other? No, actually. I’m not sure how she feels about him.
“He stole our investor.” She returns to her favorite complaint. “He lied to me, lied to him, and ruined my relationship.”
We have very different opinions on how that all played out, but she refuses to see it my way. “You don’t know any of that.”
“It’s the only explanation for what happened.”
More accurately, the only explanation she’ll accept.
“You weren’t really seeing the guy,” I remind her gently.
She huffs, redirecting her frustration from Shepherd to me. “We’d only just started to get to know each other, but it could have been…the point is, I hate him.”
I’m not entirely sure this is hate.
“And we never needed that investor,” I add.
Mom would have rejected the idea outright if she’d ever heard of it, but Wren won’t give up her dislike for Shepherd. He’s the town villain in her mind, and that’s that.
“It’s the principle,” she says, crossing her arms over her purple Blackbird’s Bakery apron that matches mine. “He can’t be trusted. I hate his stupid, handsome face.”
Yeah. Not entirely hate.
She scowls harder at me as though that slip was my fault.
The chimes over the door ring again. I greet our new customers and lean in close to whisper into Wren’s ear.
“Maybe you should Google him.”
In the spirit of keeping things as normal for August as possible, we’re trying to have family dinners at Mom’s at least once a week. I was worried he would struggle with being in his old home and want to stay put, but I should have been more concerned about sneak attacks from my mother.
“I just wish you’d waited until you and August could find a place closer,” she says. “It’s hard having you so far from us.”
“They’re only ten minutes away.” Wren steals my answer before I can voice it.
Mom sends an affectionate look at August, who’s seated next to her and devouring the barbecue chicken salad she made. “Feels like more.”
I slump lower in my seat, the criminal who stole her grandson away. Wren nudges my shin under the table and gives me a bracing look.
I hate that I feel this guilty over something so perfectly natural. Wren’s twenty-eight, I’m a mom in my thirties—we’re grown-ups. Moving across town shouldn’t make us feel like we’re breaking the family apart.
“They couldn’t live here forever.” Wren’s defense isn’t just for August and me. As soon as she finds a place of her own, she won’t live here, either.
Mom makes a vague sound, all but admitting she doesn’t mind the idea of us living together forever. I’m sure it works for some families, but Wren and I have reached our limit.
“It’s so far out of town,” she says, even though the duplex is still within Sunshine proper. “I don’t like you being all alone out there. What if there’s an emergency?”
“We’re not alone,” August pipes up. He pauses long enough to lick his lips clean of barbecue-ranch dressing. He’s carefully eaten only the chicken and cucumbers out of his plate of lettuce and vegetables. “We live with Dutch and Ian!”
Mom’s gaze slowly tracks to me. “Is that right?”
