Page 26 of Sing Me Home
“You’re welcome, son. It’s the least I could do, since you missed out on my epic-ness for the first thirteen years.”
“Are you serious right now?” Mom said, eyes dangerous. “How about thanks for the morals, Mom. And?—”
“One night stand,” Dad coughed. “Met in a bar,” he coughed again.
Yes, those were my humble beginnings.
Mom shrieked, whirled around, and gave Dad an atomic wedgie that he couldn’t ignore.
“Woman!”
While he worked it loose, I doubled over. My abs ached from laughing so hard.
Mom pointed her spatula at me like a weapon. “Just remember where you got that nose.”
I stood up and blew out my breath. “Never fear, Momzie. Many a girl has envied this nose.”I wonder what Charlie thinks of my nose.Shook that thought loose and bowed down to Mom. “I will always be in your debt.”
“Smart boy.” Mom grinned.
I picked up the next bottle and started shaking as I paced again. “This will be good. We can be friends and once the divorce is final, we’ll hit that relationship full throttle.”
Mom stole the plate of bacon from Dad so she could start layering the breakfast sandwiches. “I think you'd better face the fact that she comes with some hefty emotional baggage.”
“Just like the rest of us,” Dad said. “Peyt, you can’t protect your kids from everything hard in life. He wants to love her and she needs love.”
“Who loves him, Ford?”
Dad turned, hugged Mom from behind—wedgie under the bridge—and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “She will. Just give her some time.”
Mom relaxed against him. “You don’t know that. What happens if she doesn’t? We watch his heart break? Again?”
I winced at her words. It had been hard for Mom to see me struggle after Hawaii. But…“She’s my miracle.”
“Cash, you don’t know that,” Mom said.
“He might,” Dad said, helping Mom wrap the sandwiches. “It can’t be a coincidence that she came home when she did.”
Mom folded a corner of the foil. “Should we be worried that all is quiet on the Millie front?”
I reached back and pulled my foot up, stretching my right quad. “Quiet? She’s spewing all her hate directly at me. Woke up to another two hundred and thirty-seven new messages. Down from yesterday’s four hundred and seventy-one. All of them about how she had to return the ring to Opal and Ivy, they didn’t sign her, and if she never becomes an influencer, it’s all my fault.”
“Nothing about losing you?” Mom asked.
“Nope.”
“Cash,” Mom said, voice flat. “Block her.”
“Nah,” Dad said. “You don’t wanna do that. It’ll just make her even angrier.”
“Not sure that’s possible,” I said.
Dad’s expression turned severe. “Oh, it is. And you better mentally prepare. Because you and Charlie are trending on social media, according to Ronny Don. ‘America’s new sweethearts.’”
Our conversation died when we heard Charlie’s bedroom door shut.
I hadn’t realized how nervous I was, wondering if she was up there or if she’d disappeared in the night. When she stumbled into the room, I relaxed. In a pair of rumpled, pale blue and white striped pajamas, hair a tangled, matted mess, sleep lines creasing her face, she made my stomach swoop like no other woman I’d ever met.
My eyes skittered to Dad when I felt him watching me, watching her. A smile ghosted over his lips but I could see his concern.
