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‘Not you, Spike. He’s ordering around Alexa again. Just a minute.’ Before I can stop it, a song blasts through my echo dot speaker, causing me to drop my phone onto the floor. It skids across the hardwood floor under my bed as I sit in shock. Why would Alexa play this song? Of all songs, why the one from my favorite movie scene ever?
‘What’s going on?’ Dad asks, walking into my apartment and covering his ears; that’s how loud it is. ‘How do we turn it off?’
‘Alexa, cancel music,’ I say when I finally return from my momentary shock. The song stops immediately.
‘Alexa, play music,’ Spike yells again, causing the song to blast back on.
My dad laughs. ‘I don’t know how you live with him,’ he yells over the music.
The only way to stop it is to unplug the damn thing. I storm across the room to yank the cord from the wall.
‘Wait!’ Dad stops me just before I do it, a single hand in the air. ‘This is the song from that movie your mom loved. What was it called?’ he asks, recognizing it because she forced him to watch it as often as possible.
‘Say Anything. Laney and I just went and watched it recently. It was playing at the Hawthorne Theater.’
Dad sits on a chair in the corner of my living/bedroom and drops his head into his hands, suddenly letting out a sob he can’t control. He’s held it together for months since she died, but hearing that was too much. I squeeze in next to him, wrapping my arms around his neck and letting him cry it out while the song continues playing. Maybe it is loud enough to wake the whole building, or at least my direct neighbors, but he hasn’t shown this much emotion since the day she died, so I’m not about to shut it down.
‘Alexa, turn the music down,’ Thomas says, grabbing my door handle to shut my door. He’s pretty good at reading rooms. The music softly fades to a quieter level. ‘By the way, this is what love looks like, sweetheart.’ He nods my dad’s way. ‘When you can’t imagine being away from someone, and when you are, it physically hurts.’
My heart sinks through my chest, and my head goes to one person. And that person isn’t the guy probably listening to this entire conversation from under my bed right now.
22
RIVER
‘There he is!’ Dax says, standing from my parents’ couch when I walk in with a beaming smile I already hate. ‘The man of the night. You’re engaged!’ he says with a knowing laugh, shaking my hand obnoxiously. ‘Congratulations! When’s the big day?’
I told him over the phone this morning, and he laughed until I hung up. ‘You’re not funny.’
‘I’m a little funny,’ he insists.
‘What is she doing right now?’ I ask, wondering where my mother is and what this dinner is about. Why a family dinner the moment she finds out I’m engaged? Er, fake engaged.
‘Hols is in the bathroom.’
‘I meant my mom,’ I groan.
‘Oh, right, your mom. To my knowledge, she’s in the kitchen chatting up Caitlin.’
Chatting up, who? No, no, no. This can’t be happening. ‘What?’
He nods. ‘Yep. She figured that since Jade couldn’t join us, tonight would be the perfect night for you two to get closure so you could move on with your newfound love.’
Suddenly, I want to go back and attempt that coronary burger again and hope it kills me.
‘No, she did not,’ I say in disbelief.
He smiles wide. ‘She sure did. I tell you what, coming over here always makes me glad my mom is normal.’
That’s perfect. We’ll leave. Let’s visit Dax’s mom, a woman who does not involve herself in his life and lets him be a grown man.
‘We should go visit, I haven’t talked to your mom in ages,’ I say, heading right back out the front door, but instead, Dax grabs the back of my shirt, stopping me.
‘You’re in this now. We ain’t going anywhere.’
I sigh heavily. ‘Please, please tell me Derek isn’t—’
‘What up, Riv? Your parents got a nice house. Caitlin had mentioned something about that, but this is my first visit.’ He chomps down on a carrot stick, glancing around the room with a nod.
