Before she can say anything to ruin my life, I change the subject like a bad outfit. “So, I hear you’re going back to school tomorrow. That’s good, I think that’ll be… good.”
Mia offers me a faint smile, glancing at me sideways as she stirs the taco meat on the stove top. “Yeah, good.”
“You like school,” I say, like she doesn’t know. I’m literally terrified I’m going to say something to remind her of Vince, but my mouth just won’t stop. I’m so happy to have back a slice of normalcy, I could explode.
“I do like school,” she agrees. “And, hey, since I missed all last week, I probably don’t have to finish The Awakening.”
“What’s that?”
“A book I loathe. I haven’t cracked it open since everything happened, but somehow I feel like I’m going to hate it even more now.”
“Oh, yeah, you shouldn’t finish it then,” I agree, frantically looking to get away from that topic. “Uh… the girls! You should come play with the girls tomorrow after you get home from school. They know you live here now, but they haven’t really seen you, because—so they—” Goddammit, why do I keep mentioning things like that? “Um, they want to have a fashion show for us in Little Paris.”
Mia nods. “That would be nice.”
“I’m sorry about the whole no baby thing,” I blurt.
Mia frowns, glancing over at me in confusion. “What?”
I’m already grimacing. This is exactly the opposite of the direction I should be going in. I should be avoiding any mention of Mateo. We should talk about flowers or some shit. What do I know about botany?
“What no baby thing?” she asks, since of course that sounds like a thing that requires follow-up.
“The… It’s my fault you can’t have—I asked Mateo—I’m sorry, we should call him something else. Is Voldemort too on-the-nose? We could call him Voldemort.”
Looking at me like I’ve lost my mind, she assures, “I can hear his name, it’s fine.”
“Okay. Sorry. I’m being crazy.”
“You’re always crazy,” she says, as if to reassure me. “Back to the no baby thing.”
“I told Mateo I didn’t want us both to have his babies. And that’s really awful and selfish of me because I know you want babies, and maybe someday I won’t feel that way, but I just thought while we make sure this works, we shouldn’t take that risk. And so it’s my fault he uses condoms with you and that’s probably weird and I’m sorry.”
Her face is completely blank for a moment—like she hasn’t the faintest clue what the hell I’m talking about. Slowly she absorbs the words I just spilled out all over the kitchen, and then she looks… angry? Yep, angry. At me? Not at me. She drops the spoon she was using to stir on the countertop and turns around, leaving the kitchen without a word.
“Shit!” I look over at Maria, ready to ask her to watch the food, but she’s already heading to the stove and shooing me away.
I catch her in the hall, before she makes it to the study. “Wait, stop! What are you doing?”
“Murdering your fiancé. Someone has to do it.”
“Why? I mean, well, okay, there are a lot of reasons,” I acknowledge.
She’s walking away from me now, and although I give chase, she barges into the study. Mateo is inside, propped against the edge of his desk like always. Adrian is in his wing chair, Alec is in his. But the one where Vince usually sat, where she often sat on his lap, is noticeably vacant.
Her chest is working and I realize this is probably the first time she’s been in this room since Vince died. Everyone is staring at her. I realize she’s crying—I didn’t even notice her start crying, she just is, and I think she’s having difficulty breathing. She’s staring at Vince’s empty chair, her face is crumbling, and oh, God, I fucked everything up again.
I grab her arm, dragging her out of the study and yanking the door shut behind us.
These horrible little gasping noises are bursting out of her now, like she literally can’t breathe, and I feel so awful for her. I don’t know what to do so I just grab her and pull her into my shoulder. She clings to me and cries her heart out.
Mateo opens the study door and comes out, but I take a hand off her back, holding it up to stop him. I shake my head subtly so as not to jostle her, but I hope I’m adequately conveying “don’t you fucking dare, Satan” with my eyeballs.
He hesitates, looking like he might do it anyway, but then he sighs and slips back into the study, closing the door.
So, that’s how our first taco night starts.
Mateo seemed like he was in a better mood all morning and afternoon, which meant the whole house got a break from the darkness, so I had high hopes for this dinner. But now Mia is wrecked again, so Mateo is displeased, and the rest of us follow their lead.