Page 48 of Kiss the Girl
“I know she just sounds like Super Mom, but it was more than that. Our grades were her grades. Our wins, her wins. Our losses, her losses. If you ever meet her, you’ll see she’s pretty intense. When I was fourteen, I won the district science fair, and my mom became…I don’t know. She told everyone about how ‘we’ won first place. She spent our entire childhoods training us to grow beyond Creekville, to conquer the big, bad world.”
“She must be happy to see you both so successful.”
“Yes, but she also trained us that it’s family over everything, so she’s in conflict with herself a lot. Like, she wanted to sell the store rather than have me quit my job to come home to run it. But there’s no way we’d let my dad give it up when he loves it so much. So now she feels guilty that I’m here while also stressing about what happens when I leave.”
“It sounds like it’s a no-win situation,” he said. “For her, I mean.”
“Exactly. She needs control over things, which makes her sound bad, but she’s not. Just very invested in our futures playing out in a specific way because she wants us to be happy.”
“And that means not in Creekville?”
I nodded. “Pretty much. I’d sum up her motto as family first but get out of Creekville.”
“Isn’t that contradictory if family isinCreekville?”
I shot him a quick smile. “Welcome to the paradox of Lisa Winters. Tabitha can’t come home because work is going so well which will make my mom happy while also feeling like she failed in forging a family bond because Tabitha isn’t coming home for Thanksgiving.” I looked down at the bench between my feet and scuffed at a flaking piece of paint. “Did I mention my mom’s intense?”
“Sounds like it.”
“No matter what I do, she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders. But…”
He nudged me with his knee, like,say it.
“But I miss my job. A lot. And at least twenty percent of me being happy about my dad getting better is knowing I can go back to my career.” I looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “That must sound selfish to a guy who’s helping to raise his niece.”
“I get it better than you might think.” His voice was quiet, and I glanced over at him. “I’m happy teaching, but that wasn’t the end goal. I’d love to be a principal someday, making a difference on a whole-school level. I’d always planned to be starting my masters right now and then a PhD. But…”
“But you can’t because Paige needs help with Evie.”
He nodded. “It would kill her if she knew, but this is the right thing, and I’m okay with it. Someday I’ll do it,” he said, with a small smile. “Also, FYI, super selfish people don’t leave their jobs to come home and take care of their dads. So if I hear you saying that about my friend Grace again, we’re going to have words.”
My grandma used to say this expression about stuff “warming the cockles of her heart.” I had no idea what a cockle was, but I knew he’d just warmed mine.
Why was I sitting on a picnic table trying to get crowned as the Queen of TMI? Time for an emergency bailout.
I cleared my throat. “So how was your date?”
He looked confused. “What?”
“The hairdresser? Brooke’s friend? You went out with her the other night?”
“I know who I went out with.”
He didn’t add anything, and I might have traded Tabitha for a report on how it had gone. Honestly, right now, I’d probably trade Tabitha for a combo meal at the Dairy Keen. I currently had kinder feelings toward french fries than my sister.
“We can talk about dating. Friends would,” I said.
“That a fact?”
“That’s a fact.”
“Good,” he said, glancing over, “because Idowant to talk to you about dating.”
His hazel eyes were pretty. And he had long lashes. I hadn’t noticed that before. And as I stared into them, I discovered I didn’t want to hear about him dating anyone else at all, but I forced a fake interested expression. “Lay it on me.”
“You might be sorry you said that in a minute,” he muttered.
“Your date was that bad?”
