Page 17 of Mom Com

His eyes meet mine. “With ice cream?”

“Is there another way?”

He pulls his arm down in victory. But before he exits the room, he looks at Wilder. “I like your sweater,” he says, nodding thoughtfully. “But I get the sense my mom doesn’t like you, and like she says, ‘clothes don’t make the man.’” Then he leaves without another word.

I don’t bother explaining his recent honesty obsession or try to make the situation more comfortable for anyone. I just turn on my heel and head for the kitchen. I’m certain my mother is staring daggers at my back, but I also know she’s not going to stop me—Eleanor doesnotmake scenes. And while I get that I’m leaving before the conversation is over, I’m also physically unable to spend one more minute in a room with Wilder without murdering him.

CHAPTER7

All Roads Lead to Roman Apple Cake—

apples folded into vanilla goodness and topped with a trip down memory lane that feels inevitable

In typical DeLuca form, my mother pointedly ignores me for the rest of the day, giving me a wide berth and directing all dinner conversation to Spence. It’s obvious she’s mad by the way the skin around her eyes tightens whenever she accidentally looks in my direction, which is fine by me because I’m upset, too. I finally listened to the message she left me last night, and while it did in fact warn me that Wilder would be joining us for breakfast in the morning, I don’t forgive her. She knew what was in that codicil and instead of telling me privately, she dropped it like a bag of flaming shit on my doorstep. And then there’s the bit where she somehow didn’t find it outrageous that my father freely gave away half of our family’s bakery, the bakery he designed and built with his own hands through countless years of hard work, toWilder?!

My parents’ love for Wilder isn’t in dispute. I’m half surprised there isn’t a framed picture of him hanging on their wall. Even when he broke my heart the summer before senior year, they treated him with grace. But this is something else entirely.

I grumble under my breath as I poke the remnants of my pecan pie, willing the last moments of this meal to disappear so that I may hide in my bedroom like all repressed adults are wont to do. Part of me is itching to get my hands on the will, so I might scour it in private and try to understand the how and why of Dad’s decision. But there is no “private” when you have a nine-year-old and I’m not ready to discuss it with Spence until I can approach it calmly. I’ve barely been in control of my stress levels all day and going over it again will only get my blood pressure up. I already lost my temper once and I’m feeling a smidge guilty about that. No, I’ll sleep on it and ask my mother for the will in the morning when I’m hopefully less frazzled.

“Would you like more pie, Spencer?” my mother offers.

He leans back in his chair and pats his belly. “That’s a big fat yes,” he says with enthusiasm, his cheeks lifting at the prospect. “It’s sooo good, like next level. It might even be better than yours, Mom. You should totally get this recipe.”

My head flies up, my pride stung. But I manage a smile—you can’t teach your kid to be generous while being stingy yourself. “Maybe I will.”

My mother smiles, too, only hers has a certain knowing that reeks of gloat. “It’s from your grandfather’s bakery, dear. You should have your mom take you there tomorrow. It’s filled with all sorts of amazing treats.”

Her words hit me right in my gut. I stare at my mother and her formidable posture, knowing she’s booby-trapped me.

“Yeeesss,” Spence agrees, perking from his slouched pie-laden position. “Mom?”

I press my lips together, biting back my thoughts on the matter. “Yeah,” I say. “We’ll visit the bakery tomorrow.”

* * *

Because it’s Monday morning, there are parking spots aplenty in the square and I snag one a couple of doors down from the bakery. I zip my coat, pulling up my hood. Spence is already bouncing out of the car, all vim and vigor as I reluctantly slink onto the sidewalk.

I throw Spence’s scarf around his neck.

“Mom,” he objects, but his face is plastered with a huge grin as he sets off toward the bakery, the one place I’ve been adamantly trying to forget these past ten years.

I pull into the square, my thumbs tapping anxiously against the steering wheel. I slide my used-like-new Prius quietly into a parking spot right next to Dad’s bakery. I frown at the gentleness of the motion, as though it were an affront to the tumult I currently feel. It’s been one month since Wilder and I broke up, two weeks since I decided we could try to be friends, and three days since he started dating some girl named Alice—a rich prep from Boston with a khaki personality. The worst part is, he asked my permission. Told me that our friendship was more important. And worse still, I said he should go for it. Then I spent the rest of the night eviscerating the ice cream supply in our freezer (which is both horrific and a record of some kind) telling myself I didn’t care. I’ve avoided him for the past couple of days. But if I cancel our Sunday bake-off, he’ll track me down and try to have an even-tempered conversation about things I do not feel even-tempered about at all.

I kick open my car door like it personally offended me and step out into the humid salt-scented air. It’s always been one of the things I love about Haverberry, the way you can smell the ocean from anywhere in the town, a hint of brine from seaweed and glistening shells drying in the bright sun. But not today. Today I would burn the whole town down if I had a match.

I grumble my way into my dad’s bakery, the chimes on the door giving a shocked jingle. Mrs. Varma stands behind the counter, her black hair braided down her back, hints of gray framing her face, her warm brown skin creased deep with laugh lines, and an eye patch over her right eye, which she lost some years back.

She lifts her eyebrows as I enter, and smiles when I kiss her on the cheek.

I slip through the door leading to the bakery kitchen and find Wilder is already there, pulling ingredients from the shelves and lining up bowls. His hair is messy like a handsome scholar who fell asleep with his books and rushed to class thereafter. While his face is all well-cut angles, his brown eyes are soft and gentle. And as he turns them on me, my stomach fluttering and pulling toward him like he was my center, I hate the way I feel.

I yank my blue and white striped apron off the hook by the door.

“Battle of the chocolate tarts,” he announces, the corners of his mouth turning up. “I hope you brought your A-game, DeLuca, because I have a recipe that is going to make you want to propose—” He stops abruptly, realizing his mistake and looking slightly horrified. In a way, his remorse makes it worse, because it indicates that he has no idea how to be normal with me, either, that our default is set improperly to something much more intimate than we now share.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean...” He lets his voice trail off, clearly unsure how to finish that sentence without embarrassing us both further. He scratches his eyebrow even though I’m positive it doesn’t itch.

For my part, I stare at the ingredients like they’re fascinating as I remove them from my dad’s supply shelves, plunking them down at my usual spot on the counter. For years now, Dad has reserved a bit of his counter for us, personalized with ceramic jars filled with our favorite spoons and a rack of measuring cups and piping tools. He claims he did it because otherwise we’d run roughshod over his entire kitchen, but I know the truth is a bit more fuzzy and warm than that.