Page 22 of I Love You, I Hate You

“Any reason you’re hanging around with, and I quote, a robot with no soul?”

Olivia yelled for their attention just then, and both of them dutifully applauded when she poured a bucket of water right onto the sand. “Olivia ran off while I was changing Lily’s diaper and found her, and then insisted Victoria get snow cones with us. And you know how Olivia is when she sets her mind to something.”

“I’m sorry, I’m stuck on the part where you let Olivia run away?”

“I didn’tlether run away. She just did.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

“I got her back, which is the salient point,” he replied.

Ashley sighed. “And this horrific, soulless corporate attorney dropped everything to hang out with a five-year-old she’s never met?”

“Yeah,” Owen mumbled.

Ashley lifted a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Something going on there?”

“No,” he lied, perhaps a little too sharply because Ashley tilted her head to the side.

“You sure about that? Come on, tell your old mom the truth,” she wheedled.

Owen glared at her. “Don’t call yourself that.”

“Then don’t lie to me.”

“It’s nothing, okay?” he said, and Ashley ran her tongue across her teeth. “What?”

“You have a way of . . . deciding things about people.”

“Oh boy, this is gonna be good.”

“Shut up, I know you pretty well. Once you make up your mind about someone, that tends to be it. You refuse any other information that might contradict the narrative you have in your head. Like with—”

“Don’t say it.”

“I’ll say whatever I want. It’s like with your father. He’s not the man you think he is. He’s better than that. He’s changed, and he’s determined not to make the same mistakes he made before.”

“Can we not do the whole Dad thing today?”

“Fine,” Ashley agreed. “I’m just saying, the asshole you grouse about constantly doesn’t really sound like someone who would agree to spend her free time explaining fashion to a bossy five-year-old.”

“Olivia’s not bossy, she’s authoritative, and I do not talk about Victoriaconstantly,” Owen said.

“She’s my daughter and she’s bossy as hell,” Ashley corrected. “I love that about her. But I’m just saying, I sort of feel like maybe you’re missing something when it comes to Queen Victoria, because you do, in fact, talk about her all the damn time.”

Victoria’s face flashed behind his eyelids, her lips swollen and eyes soft. “Maybe,” he conceded.

“You haven’t dated anyone in a while. What’s up with that?” Ashley said, not-so-subtly changing the subject and yet not changing it at the same time.

“Busy with work.”

“And your stupid cat.”

“Luke isnotstupid,” he argued. “He’s a gentleman and a scholar.”

“You sound like a crazy cat lady.”

“And that sounds like a gendered insult and you’re better than that,Mom,” he snapped.