Page 76 of How Dare You

This is the part where I could sugar-coat the truth, or even flat out lie. I so desperately do not want to disappoint her, do not want her to know how close I am to losing everything she taught me how to build.

“Sweetie, are you there?”

Give her a chance to love you through this. “Yeah, there have been quite a few negatives,” I start, and then the words flow. I tell her that I have suspected Trina of trying to sabotage me for a long time, what happened with Lemon + Sway, how my interview went with Nathalie. All of it. She listens quietly, offering occasional encouraging words to let me know she is still there. When it comes time to tell her Friday West might go under completely, I almost lose my nerve, but I manage to push through and tell her all of it.

Forgetting all about the never date your coworkers rule, I tell the story of how my friends talked me into taking a vacation and how helpful Rhett was in giving me space to rest.

“And who is Rhett?” she asks.

Shit. Evidently, I’m laying everything out. “We’re kind of dating,” I answer.

“Kind of?” she scoffs. “Devon, what are you doing with a man who won’t commit to you?”

“It’s not that,” I reassure her. “It’s new, and about the time we probably would have talked about all that, I found out about the blog, so it had to take the back burner.”

“Interesting.” I can picture the way her eyes narrow and her short bob shifts when she tilts her head. “So, how do you know him?”

She is going to tell me this is a terrible idea. She will never support this “First, understand that I’m not interested in your objections.”

“Okay,” she drags the word out.

“He is a carpenter, and we work together. But it’s not a problem—”

“Yet,” she snipes.

A surge of protectiveness for Rhett, for what we are building together, rises in my chest. Sometimes, her rules are wrong. “I said I wasn’t interested in your objections.”

“It was an observation.”

“Mom.”

She puts on her best placating tone. “Okay, I am sorry. Tell me more about this man. What is his last name?”

“So you can google him too? No thanks.” Taking a deep breath, I continue. “There is so much about him that I admire. He is strong—”

“So are you,” Mom adds.

“So, isn’t it lovely that we both are?” I insist. I have not tried to articulate what it is about him that makes me want him in my life, but the words come without effort. “He listens, has this deep love for his family, makes me laugh and smile, and he shows up whenever anyone needs him. Not just me. And he has somehow figured out a way to get me to let him take care of me. The only times I have slept well lately are when he’s there. You know how I can be—” I can’t decide on a descriptor, so I say, “Just how I can be.”

Mom huffs a laugh. “Yes, I do, sweetie.”

“He is good for me. He doesn’t put up with my nonsense, and I need that. I hadn’t realized I needed that, but I do.” By the time I’m done describing him, I’m smiling ear to ear.

Mom doesn’t come back with the expected list of reasons why none of that matters. Instead, she asks, “Did I ever tell you why I’m so passionate about keeping professional distance with coworkers?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

There’s a long pause before she says, “I am not telling you what to do, but I want you to know my story.”

Her voice takes on a far more serious tone than I’m used to hearing from her. I encourage her to go on.

“My first job out of college, I dated someone who worked at the same architecture firm as me. I thought he was the sexiest man alive, and he made me feel so special. I loved the shared looks we would sneak in the break room, being with the man I knew everyone else in the office wanted.” She takes an audible breath. “And then I got pregnant, and he did not want to be a dad.” She drops this major revelation in the middle of her story, like it isn’t the most detail she has ever given me about my birth father. All she has ever said about him was that he left us both. “He didn’t want anything to do with me. I had to see him at work every day, watch him date other women and pretend nothing had ever happened between us. It was impossible to find a new job while I was visibly pregnant, so I had to wait until I was on maternity leave to leave that firm.”

“Mom, I am so sorry that happened to you.” Past conversations with her snap into clearer focus. She has always tried to protect me from getting hurt the way she was. My birth dad was the first man in my life and the first one to reject me. I never cared to find him and I still don’t, but I am grateful to learn more about her story.

“I don’t regret it. I would never regret you,” she insists. “But I don’t want you to have the same experience. Rhett sounds better than that,” she says, if a bit skeptically, “and I trust you if you believe in him. You know your heart.”

“Apparently, Allie has been trying to convince him to give up his career to be with me.”

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