I frown and look her over. “Are you sick?”
She rolls her eyes at me and scoffs. “No, I’m not sick. But something’s up with my mom.”
I take a discreet glance at her mom and shrug. “She seems fine. I don’t know what you were worried about.”
“That’s the problem,” she whispers harshly. “I don’t even know who this woman is.”
I reach over and rest a hand over her thigh. “Just relax. Enjoy our night.” My words seem to do some reassuring, but I watch as her leg bounces under the table, her eyes darting between her mom and her food.
It’s almost comical, her fear that this night was going to be a bust.
Truth be told, I was nervous coming tonight. I wasn’t looking forward to being looked down upon, to get a sneer here and there of her mother telling me how I wasn’t good enough for her daughter. I didn’t think we’d make it through dinner, but now I was just hoping there was dessert.
We were enjoying a drink by Beverly’s fire, all of us full of one of the best meals I’d ever had; that chef knew what he was doing. The chill of oncoming fall was lingering in the air outside, I couldn’t believe it was already almost fall.
“So, you two have been dating a while then?” Beverly asks, sipping her drink slowly. Paulie shifts in his chair. He said very little tonight, and I get the impression it’s because he knows these two ladies quite well and knows their relationship is touchy.
“A few months,” Jane answers confidently and gives her mom her eyes, they’re full of that determined fire I love to see. “We met when he started working on my floor and we became fast friends.”
Please don’t mention the poems, please don’t mention the—
“Then he started to send me poems and I quickly fell for him.” Jane reaches over and grasps my hand, I give her a small smile, grateful she didn’t mention that I was sending them anonymously.
But as I watch Beverly and Jane converse, I can’t say I love what I’m seeing. Both speak as if talking to a coworker, both with an air of needing to show off. It’s not who Jane is.
“Well, what a whirlwind.” Beverly smiles as Jane wraps up the story of how we met and dated. “It’s hard to imagine you’ve been dating Warren all this time. What about Jasper?”
And there it was. The other shoe that’s been dangling precariously over our heads the entire night. I knew it was bound to happen, but there was a slight sliver of hope that she would save the shoe for our next meal.
“Jasper is a family friend, as you put it,” Jane answers smoothly. “He and I are not together.”
“That’s not the impression he has,” Beverly replies, giving Jane a look of a disapproving mother. It has me tensing.
“That’s not my fault. I never once told Jasper I was interested in anything he had to offer.”
“Jane,” Beverly says sternly.
“Mother,” she replies just as coldly.
I hate this version of Jane. Hate to see her feel cornered like this.
“Bev,” Paulie says softly and Beverly looks over at him, shock on her face. “Leave the girl be.”
“I—”
“I think it’s time to go.” Jane stands fast, and I follow suit. “Thank you for dinner.”
“The meal was really nice, Ms. Leads,” I tell her and lead Jane out, Paulie on our heels.
Beverly doesn’t move from her seat, as far as I can tell, and Jane never looks back.
Something tells me this little spat won’t be the last of our issues.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“I would be lying if I said that I could live this life without you.”
-Brett Young