a woman of my mother’s singular intellect.
“I’m still sensing some hostility,” she says, her tone cautious.
Yeah, I guess I am a little hostile to the idea that my mother’s been making clandestine trips to Hastings and hasn’t once asked to see me or even called to let me know.
A clench of hurt tightens my chest. When did I become second place? For my entire life it’s just been the two of us against the world. Now there’s a Chad.
“Just surprised,” I lie.
“I want you two to get along.” There’s a long pause, in which I hear her disappointment that this conversation isn’t going better.
She wants me to be happy for her, excited about this. She probably thought about this conversation all day, all week, worrying whether this was the right time to bring these two parts of her life together.
Her next words confirm my suspicions. “This means a lot to me, Taylor.”
I gulp down the lump of resentment clogging my throat. “Yeah, dinner sounds great.” It’s what she wants to hear, and I suppose I owe her that much. “As long as I can bring a date.”
22
Conor
So one thing I’m learning about Taylor—she doesn’t take well to sudden change. With this business about her mom’s new boyfriend, a hidden, lurking, full-blown panic type-A personality has reared its hilarious head. She’s rigid and coiled beside me in the passenger seat of my Jeep, her fingernails tapping the armrest. I can sense her mashing her foot down on the imaginary gas pedal in the floorboard.
“We’re not going to be late,” I reassure her as I pull away from the diner on Main Street. We’d stopped at Della’s to pick up a pecan pie for dessert. “Dude lives in Hastings, right?”
Her phone lights up her face and reflects off her window. She’s studying the route on her map. “Yeah, turn left at the lights. We’re heading toward Hampshire Lane, then making a right on—no, I said go left!” she yelps as I drive straight through the intersection.
I glance over. “This’ll save us time.” I happen to know for a fact that the left-turn light in the intersection we just passed lasts about .04 seconds and then you’re waiting like six minutes for it to change again.
“It’s seven-oh-nine,” Taylor growls. “We have to be there at seven-fifteen. And that was our turn!”
“You said Hampshire. I can get us there faster by avoiding the lights and cutting through the residential streets.”
Her dubious expression says she doesn’t believe me. “I’ve lived here longer than you,” she reminds me.
“And you don’t have a car, babe,” I say, flashing her a grin she would appreciate if she weren’t so wound up. “I know these roads. Coach lives nearby. Hunter and I spent a night driving up and down every one of these streets when Foster wandered off from a team dinner to smoke a joint. He got lost for three hours. Found him in some old lady’s empty above-ground pool.”
“Seven-ten,” she snaps back.
There’s no winning with Taylor. And I don’t really blame her for being a bundle of nerves. I’ve been in her seat.
It was just me and my mom for so long—and then suddenly this Max goofball shows up at the house in khakis and a Brooks Brothers shirt and calling me Sport or some shit, and I about lost my mind. Had to talk Kai out of boosting the rims off Max’s Land Rover, although I’m pretty sure it was him who slashed Max’s tire the first night he stayed over.
“If you decide you don’t like the dude, just give me a signal,” I tell her.
“And then what?”
“I don’t know. I’ll switch out his sugar with salt or something. I could also replace all his beer with piss, but then you’d have to drive us home.”
“Deal. But only if he’s a super douche, like he’s got a portrait of himself hanging up in his dining room.”
“Or endangered animal heads on his wall.”
“Or he doesn’t recycle,” she says, giggling. “Oooh, maybe you can text the guys to show up at the windows wearing Halloween masks.”
“Damn, you’re dark.”
But she’s laughing, and some of the tension finally leaves her body. This dinner is a big deal for her. For her mother and their relationship. I get the sense that Taylor’s dreaded this day for a while—this moment when someone would become the other most important person in her mother’s life, and she’d have to start getting used to the idea that her mom is a person with a whole