Page 62 of Phishing for Love
Aaron smiles at my mother. “Thank you for the invite. I look forward to Sunday.” The sincerity in his voice is surprising.
“Tess can message you our address.”
A spark of hope ignites inside me. “Of course.”
“Actually,” Aaron says evenly, “why don’t I grab it from you now, so I don’t have to bother Tess.”
I struggle to keep an impassive face as Aaron types my parents’ address into his phone. The man thwarts my everymove. Would I have given him another address in a galaxy far, far away? Why, yes, I would have.
We say goodbye to Aaron and make our way past reception, where Mevia is stuffing her face with a cookie. She doesn’t even have the grace to look guilty. Offering me an unrepentant wave, she points to the cookie and mouths,So good.
At lunch, I expect Mom to pepper me with questions about Aaron. Oddly enough, she brings him up only once. “He seems kind of sad,” she says after the waiter takes our drinks order.
“I’d be sad too if I had his personality,” I retort, and then have to endure a five-minute lecture from my mom on myattitude.
We don’t mention him again, neither of us wanting our time together marred by arguments. A part of me is hoping Aaron will find some reason to cancel before Sunday, that he said yes to my mom’s invitation simply to spite me. But I’m not going to think about him right now and spoil my rare, one-hour lunch with my mother, who I didn’t manage to see over the weekend.
Mom and I share a pepperoni pizza and she updates me on the latest treatments for Dad’s back and regales me with more of Grandma’s Google antics.
I tell her about my weekend away with Nathan. We’d hired a house on the far side of the lake, three of Nathan’s college friends and their wives joining us, and we’d spent the warm days paddleboarding and tanning on the docks, and the nights playing darts and drinking games. It was a welcome distraction from work.
Things got a little tense between Nathan and me on Sunday. He was drinking way more than he usually does, and when I took him aside to tell him he was becoming too crude with his jokes and too boorish in his behavior, he accused me of beingstraitlaced and boring. We suffered through a strained couple of hours before he apologized. And even though we’ve made up, I’m still carrying his words around like a bruise.
After lunch, my mom had shopping to do so I leave her wandering the boutique stores on Main Street while I head back to the office. In the lobby, I deposit a takeout container of creamy chicken Alfredo on Bob’s desk.
“Dinner’s all taken care of for tonight, Bob.”
Bob’s eyes mist over. “Ah, Tess, you’re so good to me.”
His grateful expression puts a hard knot in my chest. Bob’s wife died of cancer two years ago. I like to bring him treats whenever I can, and Sofia and Kenzie take turns showering him with leftovers, always insisting they’d cooked way too much. Dad also tries his best to pop over to Bob’s house to help with any maintenance work that’s needed.
As Bob peels back the lid to peer inside, Dana appears in the lobby. I’m guessing she’s off to Beth’s Bakery to pick up Calvin’s daily donut allotment. She takes in the scene and immediately marches over to us, aiming her fierce frown straight at Bob. “Surely you’re not so useless in the kitchen that you can’t cook a meal for yourself?”
I swallow my retort and let Bob handle this. Dana is the only one in the building who doesn’t tiptoe around him. It’s as though she gets a free pass to talk to him like that because her husband died around the same time as Bob’s wife.
Bob scratches his chin. “Yeah, I can cook.”
“Name one dish.”
“I make a mean tuna pasta.”
Dana gives him a flat look. “Let me guess, you open a tin of tuna and add it to the cooked pasta.”
“There’s also a sauce.”
“Ingredients?”
“Mayo and ketchup, and I also melt blocks of cheese into it.”
Her thick brows knit in disapproval. “Sounds disgusting.”
“Don’t knock it ’til you try it.”
“And how is that supposed to happen, Bob Legge?”
He waits a moment, then drawls, “Well, Dana Norgate, I might just have to invite you over to my place for dinner.”
I make an effort to close my gaping mouth.
