Page 85 of The Write Stuff

“You were a late bloomer,” she mused. “I can see that.”

“That’s what Eleanor and my mother used to say about me.” I was rueful.

“Eleanor Ambrose, you mean?”

I nodded, and I felt a knot tightening in my stomach. “We’re going to have to tell our moms. At first, I thought there was a chance this might not work out because … well … I had a crush on him when I was 16. Who gets their teenage crush?”

“Apparently you do,” she replied. “I take it things are going well.”

“I didn’t know a relationship could go this well,” I admitted as I sipped my latte. “Other than the fact that he’s still in there sleeping and not giving me a tour, they’re perfect.”

“Be careful with that,” she warned. “Nothing is perfect. You guys seem perfect for each other, though. He needs to lighten up, and you need somebody to stand tall with you. You fit.”

“I think we do, too.” I hadn’t said it to anybody else, not that way at least. Even admitting it now was hard. There would be harder things in our future, though. “What are we supposed to do about our moms?”

“They’re adults. They should just suck it up. Their choices don’t have to affect your choices.”

“That would be nice.” I reached for a smile, but talk of my mother — and Huxley’s mother, for that matter — had caused it to go into hiding.

“What is it, exactly, that you think they’re going to do?” she asked, sounding utterly reasonable.

“I think Eleanor will pretend to have a heart attack, and my mother will go passive-aggressive. She’ll say things like ‘you’re an adult, and you know what’s right and wrong,’ and all the while she’ll be sending me subliminal messages about what’s right and wrong.”

“Okay, that sounds annoying, but it’s not the end of the world.” Bree nudged my wrist to get me to look at her. “Your mothers can’t keep the two of you apart. All you guys have to do is live your lives. They’re the ones who are going to have to come around.”

“What if they don’t, though?”

“They will.”

“How can you be sure?”

Bree held up the baby, who smiled at me, showing off a few new teeth. She didn’t have a full mouth yet, but she was certainly getting much closer. “I’ll let you borrow Brontë when you tell them. If you have a baby on your hip, they’re going to have no choice but to think long and hard about what they would be giving up if they tried to force you to make a choice.”

The baby clapped, as if agreeing with her mother’s diabolical plan.

“I guess maybe that would work,” I said after a beat. “My mother has asked a few times if I plan on having kids. I think she might be worried.”

“Do you want kids? It’s okay if you don’t,” she added hurriedly. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted them at first. Then I realized I did, but only after I hooked up with Brody.”

“Is that one of those things you only discover when you find the right person?”

“I think so.”

I considered it, then sighed. “We’re not thinking about it this weekend. We’re going to come up with a plan to tell them. This weekend, though, it’s just us and this weird place.” I looked around. “Is it true they have a croquet lawn?”

“Yes, and if you really want to have some fun, wait until after midnight and walk up there. You can play strip croquet if you’re really careful. The security guards don’t go in that area.”

“Strip croquet?” It nudged an old memory. “That’s in a movie, although I can’t remember which one.”

“Heathers,” she supplied. “Somebody told us about the scene — after we played the game for ourselves — and we watched the movie. It’s kind of mean and really dark. It’s funny, too.”

“Good tip.” I took a few steps from the swing. “That statue is obscene, by the way. I won’t tell him about the penises carved into the swing, but only because I would be more embarrassed to tell him than he would be to hear about it.”

“Should I take your disdain of this place to mean that you and Huxley won’t be settling here long term?”

That question threw me. “I don’t think we’re anywhere near making that decision,” I said after several beats. “I mean, we’ve barely started dating.”

“Take it from somebody who knows.” She stood with the baby on her hip. “Once you allow yourself to fall, it can happen fast. One second, you don’t think you need anybody, and the next, you can’t imagine your life without them.