Amused. Interested. Happy. The realization makes my insides go all soft and gooey.
Fuck.
Meanwhile, Nick’s mom looks at his dad and they are having one of those married-for-a-long-time silent conversations that encompass everything and nothing in a matter of seconds. In that moment, I realize that I want that, and even more importantly, I want that with Nick. Not because I can’t live without a man, but because I need to live with him. I need to be loved by him.
The truth of that has me shifting on the velvet seat, unsure of what in the hell I’m supposed to do now.
“One of these days, John,” Victoria says, twining the fingers of her free hand through his, “I’ll get you to join in on the fun.”
“After forty years into this life with you? It’s possible, I guess.” He shrugs and shakes his head. “I know how you love a challenge.”
Victoria scoffs. “Your life would be boring without me. You’d still be driving a Mercedes instead of the GTO.”
“That’s true.” He leans over and kisses her cheek. “I’d have a boring life if it weren’t for my very non-boring wife.”
It’s adorable and awful at the same time because this is the life I always wanted—the one I still want. The teasing. The fun. The in-it-togetherness, weird quirks and all.
And the thing is, I don’t just want that life. I want it with Nick because, despite how much I fought it, I’ve fallen for Mr. Always There and I can’t imagine him not being a part of my life. All I have to do to make that want a reality is to have the guts to fight for it.
Old me would have never. But the new Mallory Martin—done with being Bach—faced down Karl and won. I’ve lived through finding a treasure chest of my beloved aunt’s dildos. I’ve started a new life for myself that teenage me wouldn’t be ashamed of. I’m no longer a woman who hides in law office bathrooms. I can do this.
Nick scoots closer on the love seat and lowers his voice to a whisper. “Sorry about my parents.”
“They’re amazing.” It’s true. I’ve never seen two people more comfortable about being themselves with each other. “Nick, we need to talk.” Adrenaline surges through my veins because now that I know what I want, how I want my life to be, I want it to start now. “Can we go somewhere?”
He nods. “Sure, let’s—”
Before we can make any excuses to his parents and find somewhere to talk, though, the thick oak door to the study opens and a woman in a soft gray dress walks in. “Dinner is ready.”
“Wonderful,” Victoria says as she stands. “Shall we?”
“Mom, you know you could have just asked me to dinner instead of staging a big fight with your neighborhood nemesis.”
“True,” she says with an impish grin. “But where is the fun in that?”
Nick turns to his dad.
John shrugs as he starts toward the study door, arm in arm with his wife. “She’s your mother, son. She’s never going to do the expected.”
Nick looks over at me, a chagrined look on his face that hits me somewhere between oh-my-God-he’s-amazing and how-could-I-have-missed-this-all-along. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The Holloway dining room is huge but still manages to feel cozy. It’s all soothing creams and light blues with neutral wood—everything illuminated by the sun coming in from the huge south-facing windows. We sit down at an oval table set for four. Victoria sits to my left and Nick to my right with John straight across, obviously more interested in the chicken cordon bleu than whatever intel into her son’s life Victoria is about to go mining for.
I, on the other hand, am a jumble of anticipation and nerves.
“I know you two have been sparring or flirting or hanging out, whatever it is that they call casual sex that really isn’t these days,” Victoria says as she pours a balsamic vinaigrette over her salad. “But what I really want is to hear it all from your perspective, Mallory. Nick gives very few satisfactory details.”
“Mo-om,” Nick groans and sinks back against his chair.
“It’s true.” Victoria passes the crystal decanter of vinaigrette to John. “You’re just like your father. It feels like reeling in a shark with a toy fishing pole to get either of you to give up the goods.” She takes a sip of wine and turns her attention back to me. “So, tell me everything.”
Everything? That’s a lot to unpack, but I’m not about to turn