Page 76 of The Love Playbook

I don’t expect my mother to have a problem with my pursuing Charlotte. She’s a reasonable woman who wants nothing more than for me to be happy, but it’s also not something I want to discuss at the present moment. Not when I still have a long way to go before making her mine.

I turn, catching the way my mother’s steps falter when she notices the girl beside me. “Charlotte?” she nearly squeaks out.

Charlotte smiles, blushing as she raises a hand and gives her a little wave. “Hi Mrs. Collins.”

“Please, call me Barb, remember?”

Charlotte nods. “Barb.”

Mom rounds the side of the house and draws closer. “The boys mentioned you were here, but they didn’t say anything about a guest.” Her eyes shine as her gaze darts between us, and I wonder if she can tell how into her I am. Mom’s always had aknack for calling all of us boys out on our shit. “It’s so nice to see you. Will you stay for dinner?” she asks, motioning toward the house. “I just got home, but it’s taco night, so it won’t take long.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Charlotte shakes her head, her eyes wide as she glances between my mother and the house. “I wouldn’t want to intrude. We were just?”

“Oh, no! It’s not intruding at all. We’d love to have you. An extra seat at the table is no trouble, really.”

Charlotte bites her lip, saying nothing as my mother steps forward and takes one of her hands. “Please, Charlotte. You’d be doing me a favor. I could use a little estrogen around here with all these boys.”

“Is my father . . . ?”

“He’s not coming,” my mother answers, knowing what she was about to ask. “It’s just us.”

I watch this register and Charlotte’s guard fall as she glances up at me, a question in her eyes.

“We can go if you need to get back. It’s no problem,” I say, giving her an out.

She inhales as if making a decision before turning back to my mother and saying, “Okay, we’ll stay.”

Chapter 17

CHARLOTTE

The Collins’ home is every inch of what I was expecting. It’s warm and lived in, not dirty by any means but also not completely tidy. Shoes line the mat by the front door. Hoodies and coats cover the backs of chairs, and Barb calls out for the boys to clean them up. Magazines and books clutter the coffee table. Empty glasses dot the countertops of the small kitchen, and dozens of framed photos hang on the wall.

It’s lived-in and warm, the complete opposite of my father’s massive bachelor pad, and I wonder if she’ll put her mark on his home, too, once they get married. My own recollection of what our house was like pre-divorce is fuzzy, overridden by the near-constant state of stress, so it’s hard to imagine it was ever truly a home like this. Family photos were never updated, and personal touches around the house were nearly nonexistent.

During Mom’s low points, my father took care of most household duties, which meant hiring a cleaner and having take-out meals. Dirty dishes were rare because we mostly ate off paper plates. Even rarer was the scent of a homemade dinner permeating the air as it cooked. Clothes were always put away, folded and neat because when the housekeeper wasn’t around, I made it my life’s mission to be the perfect daughter, to be everything my mother needed to make her happy again. Because maybe if I was perfect, I’d be enough, and Mom would snap out of the darkness that always consumed her.

I wonder if my father felt the same. If that’s what ended their marriage. If he got tired of trying so damn hard to be enough and never stacking up.

I push the thought aside as I walk into the kitchen beside Chris, taking in the scene before me. Tucker and Tyler are already setting the table while Joey chops the vegetables for the tacos and Barb cooks the meat. Bailey and Quinton set to work clearing random dirty glasses and clothes strewn about, arguing and bickering as they go about whose mess it is.

It’s like watching a scene from a family movie I wish I could be a part of.

“What can I do?” I ask, refusing to stand idle while everyone else works.

“Come on. We’ll fill the water glasses.” Chris motions for me to follow him toward the cupboard beside the fridge where his mother and Joey are already fast at work.

The kitchen is cramped with so many bodies, the spicy scent of taco meat filling the air, and though I’m well aware I should feel like an outsider, I somehow don’t.

Opening a cupboard, he removes two glasses and hands them to me while Joey scoffs and ridicules him for taking the easy job.

Chris cracks back with a joke about not chopping his fingers off and getting body parts in the tomatoes before taking twomore glasses to the fridge and filling them with ice and water, then waiting for me to do the same.

It feels oddly normal that I’m here as we set the waters on the table at each place setting, and it occurs to me more than once I might be linked to this family legally come spring.

Once we’ve finished with the water, we start taking the various toppings to the table where the younger boys are already sitting, making bets on who can eat the most bright blue tacos.

“Charlotte, how many tacos can you eat?” Tucker asks, blinking his eyes up at me.