Vanilla. Megan Hart

not even close to William!”

      “William spends a week with Dad in Florida every year, Mom. Just like we did when we were kids.”

      “A week out of the year?” She sniffed. “That’s hardly anything.”

      I shook my head in warning. “Not your party. Not your choice. If Evan and Susan want Dad there, he’ll be invited.”

      My mother scowled. “The way you talk to me!”

      “Someone has to,” I said, kind of hating that it had to be me, but for fuck’s sake, Jill was my mother times two, and Evan was Mr. Avoidance. I was already the perverted black sheep anyway. I might as well also bear the burden of being the ungrateful child.

      Susan came back from the bathroom with suspiciously red eyes that made me feel bad that all of this had to be such a big freaking hassle. “It’s settled. I’ll replace the pasta bar with a vegetarian buffet. Will that be acceptable?”

      Before my mother could answer, Susan picked up her purse. “I have to get going.”

      She’d fled within ten minutes, leaving nothing but a few crumpled catering menus in her place. My mother, scrubbing the counter so hard I feared she meant to slaughter her sponge, barely said goodbye to her. She turned her face from mine when I tried to hug her goodbye.

      “You want to stay over? Your room is ready. I saved some Shirley Temple movies on the DVR.” She turned off the water.

      I snuck a peek at my phone, but to my disappointment, Esteban had signed off with a hurried GTG. I shoved my phone back in my pocket. “No. I have to work in the morning. I didn’t bring a bag.”

      “You should’ve. I never get to see you since you moved so far away.”

      We talked on the phone several times a week and texted more than that. I sighed and hugged her. My mother had gotten so much smaller over the past few years. We used to be about the same height—not that we’d seen eye to eye very often. Now it seemed almost like I could rest my chin on top of her head.

      “I’ll call you.” I paused. Then, though I prayed the answer would be negative, asked, “So, you’re not coming to the gallery show on Friday night?”

      My mother shook her head. “To what, see you in some more of those pictures? No, thank you!”

      “I could email them to you,” I offered with a blankly innocent expression that Evan and I had both perfected as teens to totally flip my mother’s shit. “The pictures, I mean.”

      “No, thank you!”

      I laughed, though part of me cringed at the way she categorized what I considered art. And honestly, how she categorized what I considered one of the most significant parts of me. I hugged her again anyway, though, because she was my mother. Then I got the hell out of that house and headed for home.

12

      Alex and Olivia were not coming to the gallery show. They’d planned months ago to go out of town for the weekend. Alex had, however, told me it was okay if I wanted to take off early to go home and get ready. I knew that was so he could leave early himself without feeling guilty, if Alex Kennedy could ever be said to feel guilt. I suspected he rarely did, which was one of the reasons we’d become friends instead of only coworkers.

      “I’m not sure you’re the one who gets to decide what time I leave,” I said, putting a few last minute bits of data into a client file and glancing to where he lounged in my doorway. “I mean, I’m the one who prints the paychecks. So.”

      “Yeah, well, we have direct deposit, so yeah, fuck your logic.”

      I laughed. “Wow. What a great workplace environment.”

      “You love it,” he said and tossed a paper plane at me that I hadn’t even noticed he held.

      I caught it in midair. “Where you going for the weekend?”

      “A nude beach,” Alex said.

      I swiveled again in my chair. “What?”

      “Gotcha. Have you ever gone to one of those?”

      “A nude beach.” I shuddered. “No. Are you really going?”

      “How about one of those all-inclusive sex resorts?”