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Her shoulders shook with laughter when I placed a hand on her back and used the other one to unzip the dress. I loved how much she cracked herself up. Even if I didn’t laugh, True was gonna laugh at her own joke. And that was usually what made me laugh.

My smile faded when my fingers brushed her back. Every time I touched this woman, my body came alive in ways I didn’t understand. Like there was a live current existing between us that randomly decided to zap me with electricity at the wildest times.

She spun around when the zipper was halfway down. “I’ll be back. I have one more to try on.”

The excitement on her face and the sweetness in her voice held me spellbound until she was back in the changing area. The dressing room was unisex in this department store, so I’d been in here with her the whole time. So far, we’d been the only ones in here. And that streak was broken when I heard a familiar voice talking to the attendant outside.

“Just these two items, ma’am?”

“Mhmm. That’s all for now.”

Chills scattered across my arms and up my neck. Five words and I knew exactly who it was.

Of all the people who could walk in, it had to be her?

“Right this way.”

The click of heels made me perk up and I was two seconds away from wishing I had an invisibility cloak to hide in plain sight.

It was either that or running in True’s dressing room.

I should have known it was a bad omen when I saw one of my dad’s billboards when we pulled off the highway. But Ihad naively believed Charlotte was big enough to keep me from running into anyone I knew.

Standing impossibly still, I waited for the attendant to show the woman to a door on the other side of the dressing room, but that didn’t happen.

And the woman I’d been avoiding recognized me in two seconds when she came to a stop by True’s door.

“Noah?”

“Hey, mom.”

“Hey, mom.”

Noah uttered those words at the same time I opened the door to show him my final dress. I went still, feeling like an outsider when all I could do was watch the stiff hug they shared before Noah stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“Why haven’t you been picking up your phone? Your father and I have been worried sick about you!” She chided and the pinch of hurt on Noah’s face had my defenses raised in a heartbeat.

I cleared my throat, forcing their attention away from each other and onto me.

Noah’s face softened while his mother’s iced over.

“You look beautiful,” Noah complimented just above a whisper. His voice was so reverent I almost forgot about the woman staring daggers at me.

“Who are you?”

Noah stepped between us when I cocked my head at her heated tone.

“Mom, this is True. True, this is my mom?—”

His mother cut him off and my hands balled into involuntary fists at my side.

“Oh, isthisyour new distraction? Your sister told me somebody had your nose wide open but I thought it was that roommate of yours,” she snipped, her inflection on the word roommate loud and clear.

What the fuck was her problem? He only ever told me about his dad, but this woman…

“True is not a distraction. And neither is Greyson. I don’t know why you and Lottie have to talk about me at all. I’m not?—”

“I wouldn’t have to get my updates from her if you answered the phone for your mother. All the years I spent raising you just for you to kick me to the curb and act so ungrateful.”