coming from the kitchen. Drawing closer, I recognized the voices and nearly turned to make a run for it.
“Shaw,” Mom called out, as if she could sense my fight-or-flight was engaged and I was leaning heavily on the flight side.
Swallowing a curse, I walked into the kitchen where Mom was standing with Aunt Emmie and Mia. “Where’s Emerson?” I asked, forcing a smile.
“Dad has her,” Mia told me with a grin. “Momma and I were hoping to have a little girls’ lunch together with you and Aunt Dallas since she’s not busy today.”
I nearly groaned. What she meant was the three of them were planning on ganging up on me over salads. I glanced at Mom, hoping she would save me, but she only gave me a stern look that told me she was on the two redheads’ side.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Sounds like fun.”
“Great.” Mia linked her arm through mine and started for the door. “It feels like forever since we’ve hung out.”
Outside, Rodger was standing beside Aunt Emmie’s huge SUV. As we approached, he opened the back door, and Mia and I climbed into the third row, while our moms took the second. Once we were on the road, I sent a quick text to Violet.
Me: Did you know that Aunt E and Mia were going to ambush me?
Violet: Nope. Not surprised, though. Jagger hasn’t been in a good place.
I bit my lip, not sure I could handle her answer if I asked what she meant by that. It made me remember Vi’s dark places after her breakup with Luca. Did she mean Jags was there?
Unable to handle the not knowing, I caved and texted her back.
Me: Define “hasn’t been in a good place”!
She didn’t text me back, and my stomach bottomed out.
Jagger hadn’t even tried to text or call me since the Sunday we’d argued. That was almost three weeks ago. I was surprised—and, yeah, a little hurt—that he hadn’t tried to reach out to me. If he was going to fix this, shouldn’t he have at least tried to get me to speak to him? Apologize? Prove to me that he wasn’t ever going to pick Cannon over me again?
Instead, there had been nothing from him, and it left me feeling…empty.
The other three women made small talk all the way to the restaurant and I tried to listen and contribute to the conversation, but all I could think about was how much I missed Jagger and wanted to hear his voice.
For weeks, I’d been thinking about what Violet said that night in the shower. How it had echoed what Jags had said to me. I wasn’t sure what to do, because I was still scared, but I knew I’d overreacted about the entire Cannon issue. Jagger had messed up by trying to keep me in the dark about my brother moving in and his past with Dana, but I’d messed up too. Vi had been correct in saying that the whole thing was microscopic on the fuckup scale.
But I didn’t know how to fix it.
After we were seated and then placed our orders, I sat back and waited, knowing it was only a matter of time before Aunt Emmie and/or Mia finally let me have it.
“I told you to give him a chance to explain,” Mom exploded, surprising me and making me sit up a little straighter. “Did you?”
“Yes,” I answered quickly, but I wasn’t sure how much of a chance I’d actually given him. He’d started talking about Mexico, and I’d gotten upset. Things had kind of escalated quickly after that, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure how much of it I remembered because I’d been so upset.
Mom rolled her eyes before glaring at me. “How much of a chance did you give him? Five minutes?”
“I… Um… A couple of hours?” I frowned, trying to remember how much time had gone by from the moment I’d gotten to his apartment until we’d started arguing. “Yeah, it was definitely a few hours. We watched some television and made lunch. But then he kept talking about going to Mexico.”
“Oh boo-fucking-hoo,” Mom scoffed. “A hot guy wanted to take you to Mexico for a few days. The nerve of him for attempting to spoil you a little.”
“He was trying to keep the fact that Cannon was moving in from me longer!” I tried to defend my actions.
“I always considered you smarter than your brother, Shaw. But I’m starting to question my judgment where you’re concerned.”