own clothes. “Oh, Lord, what is she doing here now?”
She was talking to herself, muttering with worry and frustration, and I watched as she hurried to smooth her hair down.
“Oh, when have we done this before?” I snickered teasingly.
Audrey turned me to with pleading eyes as the banging continued. “Please, Blake. Put your pants on.”
“I’m doing it,” I muttered, pulling myself up and getting dressed.
“Okay,” she breathed out, shaking out her hands. “I’m opening the door now.” Another deep breath. “Okay, gonna do it now. Right now.”
I lowered my mouth to her ear and asked, “Are you actually gonna do it, or should I?”
Wide-eyed, she turned her blue gaze on me and shook her head. “You better not.”
“Then, I suggest you do it, because my hangover really isn’t appreciating that fucking noise.”
Nodding with understanding, she laid a hand against her temple, as though remembering just how much we’d both had to drink the night before. She moved slowly toward that damn door, two knocks away from being busted open, and unlocked it.
But right before she opened it, she turned to me with a nervous bite of her lip and said, “Brace yourself, okay?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes with scrutiny. “Why?”
“Just … brace yourself.”
Before I could ask again what exactly she meant by that, she opened the door. I immediately saw the older woman, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, greying at the temples. She grinned with taunting acknowledgement at Audrey, her pale blue eyes twinkling, and I knew this must be Audrey’s mom.
I backed further into the room at the knowledge, tightening my arms around myself. I didn’t do this. I didn’t meet parents. Hell, judging from previous experiences, the parents I had met didn’t like me, even if those experiences were limited and from over a decade ago. I tried to imagine what the good doctor would have to say about all of this. No doubt, she’d make passive aggressive comments about putting the right foot forward or some shit like that.
“Oh, hi, honey. Were you sleeping?” Her mother’s voice sounded like hers, if a little raspier. Her tone lilted with playful teasing, and the tension in my arms relaxed just a little. “I seem to remember someone telling me she’d call last night when she got home, but …”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Audrey groaned in reply, laying a hand over her face. “I got a little, um … distracted.”
“Uh-huh. Distracted.” Her mother allowed a little laugh before sighing. “I didn’t want to bother you, honey. But someone didn’t want to wait any longer before coming down.”
Audrey’s breath released from her lungs with a long-winded exhale that I was sure must’ve hurt. “Oh, uh, yeah. Okay.”
She quickly glanced in my direction, worry laced between the hints of silver in her eyes. I couldn’t decipher what was happening in her mind, or what was happening at all, until her mother said, “Get over here, Freddy. What did I tell you about playing with that plant? What did it ever do to you?”
As Audrey crouched to the floor, my heart raced toward panick territory as my eyes quickly scanned the living room. It’d been so dark the night before, I never noticed the toys littering the coffee table or the buckets of Lego stacked in the corner. But now I did, and I understood with clarity, Audrey had a son. My palms began to sweat as the realization seeped beneath my skin and chilled my veins, and I turned to see the little brown-haired boy appear in the doorway.
“Hey, pal,” Audrey greeted him sweetly, successfully pushing any hint of a hangover or irritation from her voice.
“Mommy, Grandma doesn’t have pancakes,” he replied.
“Oh, here we go with the pancakes again,” Audrey’s mother muttered.
“What about pancakes?” Audrey asked, looking up to her mother, then back to her son.
“He wanted to have pancakes for dinner last night,” her mom explained with a sigh and a shake of her head. “I didn’t have the stuff to make them, so this is all I’ve heard about since.”
I couldn’t help my chuckle, remembering Jake and our conversation about pancakes for dinner just a couple of weeks ago. The sound alerted Audrey’s mother to my presence, and she gasped, laying her hand over her chest as she peered into the apartment.
“Oh!” she exclaimed and pinched her eyes shut. “I’m so sorry. I thought … Audrey, I thought you were alone. You should’ve said …”
Hurrying to stand, Audrey’s hands waved with protest.