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“Sure.”
“Allie, we don’t talk about it much, mostly because you seem to change the subject every time I ask, but what exactly is Asher to you? Is he a… phase? Or are you thinking long term?”
I can’t tell which answer would please her more. She’s been aware of Asher and me hooking up since the beginning. I mean, I do live in her house, and she did catch him doing the walk of shame that first time. And even though we never talk details, she knows about my monthly-ish visits to Manhattan. Sometimes I wonder if it bothers her that he’s so much older. Strangely, it doesn’t seem to bother my brothers. Then again, maybe none of them believe anything will ever come of it. And they’d be right.
“He has a kid. They live in Florida. We don’t talk about things like that.”
Her head cocks. “You’ve been together over a year and you’ve never talked about your relationship?”
“We’re not in a relationship, Mom.”
Her gaze scolds me. “Honey, you drop everything and run to the city every time he’s there. Sure, we don’t speak of him much, but whenever you say his name, there’s a certain twinkle in your eyes. And, Allie, when he visits Calloway Creek with Bug and I see him look at you from across the room… Anyone can see what you have is a relationship.”
“So we’re hot for each other.”
“I think it’s more than that.” She shakes her head as she stuffs burp rags into Mitchell’s diaper bag. “You young people. You never want to define your relationships. Things were different when your dad and I met. You had a boyfriend or you didn’t. There was none of this in-between stuff.”
I laugh. “You led a sheltered life, Mom. I hate to break it to you, but people have been doing the friends-with-benefits thing for hundreds of years.”
“Friends.” She gives me a sharp stare. “That’swhat you are? Come on.”
I shrug, not wanting to get into this with her again. As close as we are, I do not want to have another conversation with her about me and guys. She obviously wants me to be happy, and she thinks I need to be married to accomplish that. But she should know better. She should know there’s a part of me that can never be happy.
She picks Mitchell up, resting him against her shoulder, and grabs the diaper bag. “Can you help me bring his things over to our bungalow?”
I get the bassinet and bouncy chair, then remember the other bottle in the fridge, and follow her out the door and acrossa courtyard to their palatial rental that’s five times as big as mine. It makes me wonder where Asher and Bug will be staying. I know some wedding guests will be down at the main building of the hotel. It’s where my friends Ren and Addy are staying, along with their husbands and kids. Most of the Calloways are making the trip here. They’re our cousins, and our families have always been close.
We pass the large stairway that leads down to the restaurants, bars, and pools in the center of the massive hotel complex. I can almost see Asher climbing the stairs, maybe even taking two at a time in his excitement to get to me. After the videos, I know we’re both chomping at the bit to see what’s next.
“Allie?”
I hadn’t realized I’d stopped walking and am staring at the steps.
“What? Yeah, coming.”
After leaving Mom and Mitchell at her place and returning to my own, I get a call from Mia.
“Has the sex god arrived?”
I laugh. She’s the only one I talk about Asher with. My other friends ask about him often, but it’s hard for them to understand why I like things the way they are. Mia knows. She knows about all of it. Jason. Christopher. My aversion to anything permanent. “Not yet.”
“I’m going to need details. I’m seriously suffering from FOMO here, Allie.”
“You could have come, you know.”
“Ha! A Cruz at a Montana wedding?”
“Dallas has nothing against you.”
“Still, it would have been weird. But I want pictures. Do you have your dress yet? I’ll bet the sex god is going to flip out when he sees you in it.”
A smile creeps up my face. We have picked up the bridesmaid dresses. And I do believe Mia is correct and Asher might just want to tear it right off me when he sees me up there. If the plunging neckline doesn’t do the trick, the amount of thigh that’ll be showing through the long slit up the side ought to do it.
Bug’s dress is like mine—a blue-green shade that matches the sea—minus the sexy neckline and thigh-revealing slit.
It’s going to be strange, Bug and me standing up next to Marti as her two attendants. Marti didn’t have many friends before coming to Cal Creek. Since her move, we’ve gotten close. And Bug is her niece. It only made sense that we’d be standing up with her at what will be a small, intimate ceremony. Still, it will be a bit awkward being right next to Asher’s daughter—the kid who hates me because she thinks I’m stealing her dad’s attention.
Sometimes I wonder if it would make things better or worse if I told her this is nothing more than a long-term fling. Would she be relieved that I’m not going to be a permanent fixture in their lives? Or would she be pissed that I’m using her dad to satisfy an itch?