Page 51 of The Write Stuff

“Oh, you really are friends with a woman.” Her disappointment was palpable.

Laughter burbled out of me. “Sorry to disappoint.” I wasn’t, but she needed to think I was. “Right now, it’s just hanging out with friends. If I do find someone to date, you’ll be the first to know.”

“No, I won’t. You never tell me when you’re dating.”

“Huh, I wonder why.” I kicked back on the couch. “Tell me the plan for divorcing Jules,” I prompted. I needed to get her on another subject.

“I didn’t say I was ready to divorce him.”

I just waited her out.

“Fine. I’m totally going to divorce him. Do you have to be right about everything?”

I thought about Wylie again. “You know what, Mom? I’m starting to come to the realization that I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in my life.”

“Who are you and what have you done with my son?”

“Very funny.”

14

FOURTEEN

My mother was in a mood.

Me? I was flying high. Huxley had actually gotten us into The Olde Pink House, just as promised, and it had been an amazing time. The food was great, and he’d even gotten in the ghost hunting spirit at the downstairs bar after we’d eaten our weight in scallops and potatoes.

The date — not a date date or anything — had been the previous evening, and I was practically giddy 20 hours later.

Right up until my mother called me for a video chat.

“I’m not sure we should be having this discussion,” I said when she continued to stare at me through the small screen.

“Who else am I going to have this discussion with?” she demanded. “Your sister is driving me nuts.”

“I guess I didn’t realize that she was calling you as often as she was,” I admitted. I was on the couch with a fleece blanket and my e-reader. It was raining, so I had every intention of tucking in with a good book. My mother had thrown that plan right out the window.

“How could you not notice that?” Mom challenged. “Aren’t you guys living together?” She grew momentarily distracted when another figure filled the screen, cutting in front of her and leaning forward.

“Hi, Wylie,” my stepfather, Mick, greeted me with a broad smile. He was still a good-looking man — my mother called him a distinguished silver fox — and I always felt better after he bestowed one of his famous smiles on me.

“Hi, Mick.” I went warm all over seeing him. He’d been the best thing that ever happened to my mother — despite the fallout with Eleanor — and they’d been happy together for years. It was hard for me to even remember a time when he wasn’t in our lives, even though I’d been an adult when they got together.

“Hey, kid.” Mick plopped down next to my mother on the couch — they were in the library because I could see the huge window behind them — and made her laugh when he took the tablet to get a better look. “You look good. How are things?”

I shrugged. “Pretty good, other than Lucy not talking to me.”

“That’s because she’s talking to me,” Mom complained. “Twice a day, Wylie.” She looked exasperated. “You’ve got to do something to make up with your sister. I can’t deal with this many calls.”

“Tell her that,” I suggested.

“I have. She says she’s lonely and needs somebody to talk to because she has no friends.”

“She had friends,” I argued. “When I told her it was time to contribute to the household, though, they all dropped her because she could no longer go out partying.”

“Did she burn through all of her severance from the Wyoming thing?” Mick asked.

I sent him a pitying look. “What severance? It was an internship. They gave her room and board, and I had to send her spending money every month.”