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Everything would be okay.
12
ARIA
“Why am I hungover and you’re not?” Fernie muttered. I pressed my lips together. It felt kind of mean to laugh out loud at her pain.
“Because even though you’re a bartender and know better, you don’t eat or hydrate enough when you drink,” I answered softly. She shut her eyes with a sigh.
“Do you at least feel better?” she asked. I thought about her question.
“I do.” I smiled. If I was honest, I felt better after talking things out with Aiden.
It had surprised me when I went to the door looking for Fernanda and saw them talking on the porch. After Fernie had threatened him, she hugged me and told me to make him work for me. Not to give in at his first apology.
It had been hard to do.
I’d wanted to accept his apology and ride back home with him. But I couldn’t. I knew I was rolling the dice, risking it all by sending him away. But I knew Fernie had been right. I wasn’t his doormat to be ugly with. I couldn’t let him think he could be a jerk, and with a sweet sorry, I’d go running back.
But what if he didn’t come back? What if he thought I wasn’t worth the effort? I batted away the doubts and exhaled slowly. If he thought that, he wasn’t who I had believed him to be.
“I’ll get breakfast ready.”
“Bacon?” Fernie popped her head up without bothering to open her eyes. I stifled a chuckle.
“Of course.”
“Thank you,” she groaned, rolling over and tossing a pillow over her head. I smiled as I slipped out of the room just in time to walk into the living room to see my mom slip into the house.
Wearing what she had worn to her ‘book club’ the night before.
“Hi,” she squeaked, and I swore she sounded just like Fernanda used to sound when Mom would catch her sneaking into the house.
“Morning, Mom.” I smiled as we walked toward one another. When she hugged me, I didn’t miss the cologne that seemed to cling to her clothes, or the little love bite at the side of her neck.
“Merry Christmas Eve!” she said, stepping back and fluffing her hair to hide the mark. I had to bite the inside of my cheek.
My sisters and I had all talked about the times we had caught Mom walking in and out of the house at weird times with even weirder excuses. Whatever she was up to, she wasn’t ready to share it with us. And after doing everything to raise us all alone the best way she could, she deserved whatever joy she had found.
“Did you crash at book club?”
“Book club?” she repeated with wide eyes. I saw the moment she remembered her own lie as she started to nod. “Yeah! Too much wine with your Tia Yoly and Marie.”
“Girls are all hungover.”
“But you’re not.” She followed me into the kitchen and watched me from the doorway. “Are you feeling better?”
“He came by yesterday. He apologized,” I shared. She made a face.
“You told me that yesterday,” she reminded me, and I nodded. “You still haven’t answered me.”
“I am, and I’m… I don’t know.” I leaned against the kitchen counter and looked toward my mom. “I love him. I love his girls like they’re my own.”
“Mami, you’re only twenty—” I shook my head. I knew what she was doing, and I couldn’t blame her. She was my mom, trying to look out for me. Protect me. I knew because it’s exactly what I would do for River or Lake.
“I know.” I grinned. “But I can’t help how I feel. Imagine if you hadn’t married Dad when you did? You would have had less time with him, and fewer of us.”
“I know,” she agreed softly as guilt flashed through her gaze for a moment. “I wouldn’t have changed a thing but soaked in every moment a little more.”
