“Oh, Mom,” Cayden said with a laugh. “No one goes looking for their soulmate right next door.”
Spur sucked in a breath as Olli lowered her head.
Cayden froze, his eyes growing wide. “I mean…”
Tension rode the air currents, and Spur couldn’t get himself to take another bite of food. “Cayden, just let it be,” he said quietly. If they’d all stop engaging with their mother, maybe she’d stop eventually too.
“I’m sorry,” Olli said, looking at Cayden. She held up her phone. “I just got an emergency text from my floor manager. I can’t stay.” She started to rise, and Spur’s desperation knocked against all of his ribs.
He half-rose too. “Olli,” he said.
“It’s fine, Spur,” she said, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She also sounded one breath away from crying, and he really couldn’t let her walk away in that state. “You stay. Really. Sometimes these things happen when you’re running a two million dollar business by yourself.” She glared down the table to his mother, who didn’t even look up from her plate.
Spur lifted one leg over the bench to go with her. He even said, “Let me walk you back.”
“No,” Olli practically barked at him. “It’s fine. Really. I’m fine.” With that, she walked away, her back straight and her head held high.
Spur could only stare at her back, wishing he’d had a chance to tell her how amazing she looked in those white shorts and that dark blue tank top. She wore a pair of tennis shoes and her hair in a curly ponytail that had smelled like summer sunshine and warm fruit. She’d probably named it Family Picnics and Happy Couples or something equally as amazing as she was.
“Sit down, baby,” his mother said. “She’ll be okay.”
Spur looked at his mother, still in a bit of a trance. “I’m not hungry,” he said. “Excuse me.”
“It’s a family picnic,” his mom said as he freed himself from the confining picnic table. “Spur.”
“If he’s leaving, can I go?” someone asked, and Spur’s guilt punched him in the back of the throat.
He turned back to everyone, wondering when he’d stopped being respected. “Duke and Conrad have their girlfriends here,” he said calmly. “What’s the big deal if I invite mine?”
“No big deal,” Cayden said. “Right, everyone?”
“Not to me,” Trey said. “I think she’s really sweet.”
“I didn’t mean to upset her,” Ian said. “I was just kidding.”
“He has a point,” Duke said, his eyes worried.
“Darling,” his mother said. “Just get a cupcake and come sit down. You’ll call her later, and it’ll be okay.”
Spur wanted to lift up the tray of cupcakes he’d carried to the table and throw it as far as he could. Instead, he did what his mother said, because he didn’t want to cause a scene. At least more of a scene than had already been caused.
He kept his head down and his mouth shut for the rest of the picnic, and as he helped clean up, he stuck close to Cayden, Blaine, and Trey. He wanted to ask them if it was that obvious that he and Olli weren’t a very strong couple, but he didn’t. He didn’t need the extra salt rubbed into already open wounds.