“Nice to meet you,” I say because that’s what you say when you meet someone and have no idea what else to say.
He chuckles. “Somehow I don’t believe you.”
“Boys! Are you coming inside or do I need to bring dinner outside?” A woman shouts from the porch.
Damon shivers. “Eat outside in this weather? No thanks.”
He marches toward the house with his brothers following him. I trail behind.
When we reach the porch, Peace kisses the woman waiting there before smiling at me. “Cash, meet my mother, Clementine.”
“It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs. Bragg.”
“Oh, I’m not a Bragg. I’m a Sky. Clementine Sky.”
My cheeks warm with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t you worry, young man. We’re all family here.” She kisses my cheek before herding me inside.
I wait until she bustles into the kitchen before asking Peace, “You brought your mom?”
He chuckles. “As if I could stop her.”
I must have misheard. “I’m confused. Your mom is having dinner with the woman…” I trail off as this is getting too awkward for words.
Peace claps me on the back. “My mom is having dinner with the wife of the man she slept with.”
“And they get along?”
“Why shouldn’t they? Neither one of them did anything wrong.” He narrows his eyes on me. “Or do you think my mom is in the wrong?”
I raise my hands and back away. “I don’t know what happened. And I never judge.”
“Johnny Law,” Olivia shouts. “Stop hogging the rockstar.”
“Rockstar? Not in this house he isn’t,” a woman standing in the middle of the room mutters.
“Who is she?” I whisper.
“I’m Daisy Bragg.”
A man with long hair clears his throat. “Cox.”
She beams at him. “Of course, I’m now Daisy Cox, but I used to be a Bragg.”
As in the mother of the Bragg brothers? As in the woman who my mother betrayed by sleeping with her husband? As in the woman my mother vilified because she had what my mother wanted?
I open my mouth to somehow explain my mother wasn’t a bad person but the only words to come out are, “I’m sorry.”
She pulls me in for a hug. Why is she hugging me? What is happening? I hope I don’t appear as awkward as I feel when I pat her back.
She ends the hug but she doesn’t release me. She grips my biceps and holds my gaze.
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. It’s not your fault my husband cheated on me. It’s not your fault your mother had sex with my husband.”
I cringe. I know my mother had sex with her husband. I couldn’t have been born otherwise. But the idea of my mom and sex? I force those thoughts away. I am not going there.
“But my mother tried to steal your husband.”