as she moved past him, but she smiled. Oh yes, she smiled. Because if there was one thing she was getting really good at, it was lying, and that smile was the biggest lie yet.
“See you at the game tomorrow. Field five, remember.”
She didn’t wait to hear what he had to say to that, if anything at all; she had one goal, and that was to get to the pint of Häagen-Dazs in the freezer.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Ellie!”
“What are you…ohmygod, is that Buck?!”
Spinning back around, Ellie squeezed her eyes shut as tight as she possibly could and slapped her hands over her ears, desperate to unsee what she had already seen and to unhear the sounds still hanging in her living room.
Her mom’s iPad crashed to the floor as Gail made a frantic grab for her discarded bathrobe while Buck’s startled shouts kept coming from the speaker on the now upside-down tablet.
“Gail, honey, what happened? Are you okay? Should I call 911? Oh Jesus, where are my pants?”
“Oh my God!” Ellie cried. “Shut it off! Hang up! Do something!”
“I’m trying,” Gail yelled back. “If you’d stop screaming and let me think for two seconds.”
“Gail?” Buck’s voice grew louder when Gail finally managed to retrieve him from the floor. “What the hell was that? Why are you dressed?”
“Ellie’s here, Buck. I have to go.”
“What? Hang on, I need to find my hearing aid.”
“I swear to God, Mom, make him stop!”
“Give me a second! Buck? Buck!”
Gail’s voice and footsteps got farther and farther away, but Ellie kept her eyes shut until she was sure both her parents and the tablet were all upstairs. There wasn’t enough therapy or pizza in the world to get her through what she’d just witnessed. No child wants to even think that her parents might have ever had sex, but to see them…like that…over Skype…with Gail on the couch and…and…what the hell kind of noises had Buck been making anyway?
When she finally dared open her eyes, she kept them to narrow slits—just enough to see her way to the kitchen, where she guzzled a full two glasses of water and got halfway through the pint of ice cream before draping a wet dishcloth over her face.
It was while she was sitting at the table, head thrown back, the cloth dripping down her cheeks, that Gail came back downstairs and cleared her throat.
“Obviously, we weren’t expecting you to be home so soon.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Even under the cloth, Ellie closed her eyes again, as though that would help. It didn’t.
“It’s just so hot upstairs…”
“It’s not the house, Mom.”
“I don’t think I broke my tablet, but maybe next time I’ll…”
“Mom!”
Gail clicked her tongue and yanked the cloth off Ellie’s face with one quick whoosh. “For goodness sake, it’s just sex.”
“Ugh.” How was it even possible that Ellie was part of this family? “Gabbie told me you were using the tablet for online dating sites.”
“I know, I told her to tell you that.” Gail bobbed her head in one sharp indignant nod. “We lied, because I knew this is how you’d react. And you can save that holier-than-thou look, young lady, because you’ve been lying to me since the day I arrived on your doorstep.”
That brought Ellie upright in a hurry.
“That’s right,” Gail went on. “I know all about you and Brett.”
“What?” Ellie tried to look at Gail, but she just couldn’t do it. “What do you know?”
“I know you’re in love with him. I knew it from the first day I got here and you came dragging in all covered with mud, all blushing and nervous, and then you left that poor boy standing out there in the rain like that.”
“Mom, I wasn’t…I’m not—” She grabbed for the ice cream, but Gail snapped it up first and put it back in the freezer.
“And I know you’re going to deny it because he’s leaving soon, but distance doesn’t matter anymore, honey. Gabbie and I can show you how you can still enjoy each other even when you’re far apart. Did you know there are apps for this kind of thing now?”
“I’ll give you ten billion dollars if you stop talking right now.”
“Oh, for goodness sake, are you going to pretend you’ve never enjoyed sex before?”
“No, but any more of this and I might never enjoy it again.” Slumping over the table, she ran one finger along the edge and sighed. “Without giving me any more nightmares than I’m already going to have, would you mind clueing me in