“Of course,” she said, sitting back so she could better see me.
“So, I dare you to take a chance with me. It could be your greatest adventure yet.”
“It could be a mistake…”
“I thought you were done trying to push me away?” I teased, not worried at all about this being a mistake. Nothing could convince me that this feeling was anything except everything.
“I am done pushing you away. But you’re Mr. Risk Assessor. So, what’re the risks here?”
“In this case, the benefits far outweigh the risks. You could break my heart. But for me, this risk is worth it.” We joined hands and I brought them to my mouth, kissing each one of her knuckles. “So, what say you?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, she pressed her mouth to mine. “Yes.”
Epilogue
Mom’s new apartment looked festive as fuck. There must have been four million Christmas lights between the front door and the living room, and even more wrapping the railing on the balcony off of her dining room.
The apartment even smelled like every Christmas of my twenty-four years: mulled wine, gingerbread, and honey-glazed ham. The Christmas tree held a dozen ornaments James and I had made growing up, most of them still in pristine condition. But it felt different. In good and not-so-good ways.
My dad was noticeably absent. In his place, James carved the ham, and I only gave him shit for his poor knife skills once. There were no presents for Dad under the tree, and his famous Christmas cocktails were missing.
Mom, being a bigger person than me or anyone else, had invited him to join us. But I think the new arrangement felt weird to us all, and Dad didn’t feel comfortable in the home my mother had made without him, for the first time in their twenty-seven years of marriage.
But the good far outweighed the bad: James was single again, which meant no random guest of his griping that she was allergic to everything my mother painstakingly cooked or silly things like “Mimosas? Who has alcohol at breakfast?”
Far and away, the best part of this Christmas was Liam.
It didn’t even matter that he was running late. After four months of us taking turns flying back and forth every other weekend, he had taken it upon himself to drive this time—explaining that he was in Utah for work so what was a hop, skip, and a jump over the border? It did make sense. But the poor guy had spent nearly every winter of his life in Las Vegas, so I knew he wasn’t accustomed to Idaho winter roads, which explained his tardiness.
Mom’s apartment looked out over the quiet parking lot so I would be able to see the moment he pulled in. I only looked out the sliding glass door every five seconds or so, got teased by James every other time he caught me.
Part of me felt guilty that we were spending this holiday with Mom, leaving Dad alone for the first time since before James and I had come into existence. But, knowing him, he would have some female entertainer to keep him company.
James hated that I called Dad’s girlfriends—yes, there had been more than once since Mom moved out five months earlier—female entertainers, but that’s all they essentially were to him. It was as if he was reclaiming his youth by seeing a new woman practically every weekend.
Mom, ever the saint, told us that he probably felt robbed of his young adulthood, since she got pregnant with James when they were both twenty. Because it only took one person to make a baby, I guess.
“I’m starving,” James said, dropping on the couch beside me so forcefully that the cushion beneath me nearly bounced me to my feet. All of Mom’s furnishings were brand new, something that she had insisted on. But it made me sad that she had given up the old record player she and Dad had danced to—a gift from her parents—because the memories it held were too vivid and painful.
But, all things considered, Mom was doing better than expected. I guess I had anticipated a weepy few weeks after I arrived home, but Mom was a woman on a mission, getting her own apartment for her and Squeaker and trading in the car she and Dad had bought together in favor of something fun and zippy. She was embracing her singledom too. She recently got some app for older people, but preferred meeting people the old fashioned way. She started volunteering at the shelter