Page 55 of The Promise Of You

My gaze turns stupidly to Haley, who’s looking at her mom like she’s growing another head, then back to Lynn. Does she know something I should know?

Around the table, an embarrassed silence settles in. “Mom,” Justin growls, his eyes closed, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

Yup. There’s definitely something I should know. Blood wooshes through my ears, and my vision narrows to my glass as I try and make sense of what she’s saying.

Lynn is still looking at me like she asked the most innocent question. I’m sure she has, in her mind. I just wish I’d been sent the memo.

I don’t want to look stupid. I don’t want to create a scene. I just wish this dinner could continue the way it started.

“Oh, yeah, yes-yes-yes, of course.” I nod and wipe my clean mouth. Take a drink of water. “Um,” I shake my head, “There’s still some loose ends and uh—” My cheeks burn. Ohmygod. Is he breaking the lease? What will happen to Aunt Dawn?

“The restaurant will participate in the fair,” Cassandra cuts in.

“Right, and next week we’ll be open on the Fourth, although it’s a Tuesday and until now the restaurant’s been closed on Tuesdays. Trying to make a little extra money.” I feel all my eyes on me when I continue rambling. “Anybody who wants to work a couple of hours instead of having fun on a holiday, just pop into the restaurant!” I force a laugh. “But basically yeah, you know,” I glance at Justin, who’s studiously avoiding my gaze by scraping off the rest of my veggie glaze with his fork, sticking, it seems, individual grains of quinoa to the back of it, “we’re in the ironing-out-details phase of it.”

“Interesting! So how are you going about it?”

“Um… well, we—um. It’s… lots of moving parts.”

“But what’s the target date?” Lynn turns to Justin. “Don’t you need a date?”

He clenches his jaw. “Nothing’s set in stone yet, Ma. We’re still just talking things out. You’re getting a little ahead of yourself,” he adds with a bite in his tone.

“Well, I’m just asking a perfectly valid qu—”

Craig sets a hand on his wife’s hand, a gesture that carries enough gentle force to make her stop talking and turn to him. “Honey,” he says. “He’ll figure it out. Like the kid says, you’re getting ahead of yourself, and you’re not helping.”

“Oh okay,” she says softly. “I was just asking because, you know, Justin needs… and um, I thought that’s why Chloe was here, to you know, iron things out like she said.”

My heart stammers and my throat tightens. Luckily people are politely avoiding looking at me, and the general conversation now moves on to Justin’s community dinners. I take a sip of water, then another, the voices around me fading.

Is Lynn just ill-informed? Is Aunt Dawn unaware of something? Or was she aware of the agreement to close down the restaurant, and she didn’t want to tell me? But then why bother? And surely I would have found something about it, some correspondence, emails, notes. Something.

I didn’t.

Who’s keeping what from me?

Just as my thoughts are taking a dark turn, I’m jostled back to the present by Craig’s question, “Why don’t we ask Chloe what she thinks?” and everyone falls silent as their eyes narrow in on me.

eighteen

Justin

She nearly chokes on her water when Dad calls her out. Jeez, can they leave her alone? Don’t they see she’s trying to figure out what’s going on with the restaurant that she didn’t know? Mom always puts her foot in her mouth—usually in a funny way—but this time she went too far. I need to put some distance between them and my business.

Clover is getting caught in that mess.

God, I’m the reason she’s stammering through dinner, feeling awkward as fuck, avoiding my gaze when she thinks I might be looking at her.

I could feel her staring at my back, at the barbecue, her presence like a warming fire, an overall tingling. Then I saw her leave, and I know why she did it.

She doesn’t know who I am anymore. And fuck, neither do I.

Now Dad wants her opinion on my community dinners, something my parents think I should stop doing or at least, scale back to just once a year.

Not a chance. But why are they putting Chloe on the spot for that? Are they trying to pit us against each other?

“Sorry—what—what is this about?” Clover says as she carefully sets her glass on the table.

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