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“Oh my God, you made it.” Mom pulls back just enough to grab my face and pepper every inch of it with kisses. “I’m so happy you’re here.”
Laughing, I extract myself and smile at her. “I missed you, too, Mom.”
Mom is disgustingly beautiful with a wild explosion of thick, black curls and deep, green eyes the shade of damp moss over an elegant nose and full lips. She’s draped in a stunning, Grecian slip in a soft green that makes her eyes seem to glow. The five, gold bands at her wrist clatter noisily as she loops her arm through mine and drags me in the direction of the house and the gorgeous man grinning at us from the doorway.
Ozias Delgado extends his big arms to me, and I release my mother to race up and throw myself into his wide chest.
“Ah, my sweet Addie.” He squeezes me hard once before stamping a kiss into the side of my head. “You are home at last. You are never allowed to leave again.”
He says the same thing every time I come to visit, and he means it, and I want so badly to accept.
“Don’t tempt me.” I say, pulling back to face both of them now standing side by side, studying the figure coming up behind me.
“Rhys!” Mom moves to engulf him in an equally crushing embrace. “I’m so happy both my babies are home.”
I don’t look at Rhys.
“You didn’t mention you and Addie were coming together,” Oz says, and I have to resist the urge to grimace at his unintended remark.
Rhys draws back from Mom but keeps a loose arm around her shoulders as he addresses his father. “Cumming together just seemed like a fun idea.”
He’s intentionally being impossible knowing I can’t say shit.
“I’m so glad.” Mom squeezes his middle. “I guess you guys started talking again after Addie texted you a couple of weeks back?”
I forgot all about the text I promised Mom I would send Rhys. I forgot I sent it, but not what I sent, unfortunately.
“I did get her text,” Rhys assures her, but his eyes are burning into the side of my deliberately averted face.
Mom hadn’t specified what I should say to the guy I was intentionally avoiding so, I said the first thing that had come to mind —“Texting.”He never texted back so l had considered my obligations fulfilled.
“Well, now that I have you both here, I want to hear everything.”
“Why don’t you and Addie go ahead?” Oz touches his lips to the side of Mom’s head. “We’ll get the luggage.”
They share a slow kiss, and I find my attention lifting to the man watching me. His loving gaze moves over my face to rest on my mouth. I feel them tingle as if he’s touched me and my chest aches to go to him. To press my palms to his shoulders, go up on my toes and taste him. He’s barely a foot away and I fucking miss him.
“Love you,”he mouths, and it only hurts more.
I mouth it back just as our parents pull apart. Mom turns to me with a happy little grin that glows pink on her cheeks.
She claims my arm, threading hers through it and leading me deeper across the gleaming, black marble cut from the same material as the front stairs. It runs through the entire first floor, a sleek, black river with gold veins.
I peel my slippers off and set them on the mat just inside the door, noting mine is the only pair there.
“No one else has arrived?”
“Not yet, but they should before the dinner. That means,” she presses my arm to her chest, “I get you to myself for a little while longer.”
I am more than happy to have Mom to myself. All the stress I’d been hauling around the last week vanishes the deeper Mom drags me through the house in the direction of the back patio.
She practically shoves me into a cushioned wicker chair facing a full view of Lake Eden in all its splendor and grace. The evening canopy of navy-blue shimmers across the calm surface, creating a hypnotic ripple I can’t tear my eyes away from.
“How’s your father and Sue?” Mom pulls my attention away from the familiar scent washing off the clear surface to kiss my cheeks.
It’s a good question.
“I have no idea,” I tell her with a shrug. “I haven’t seen or talked to either of them since Christmas. Eight months ago. Itexted Dad for Father’s Day, and just to check in, but he hasn’t responded.”
