Page 52 of Our Secret Summer

“I have feelings for her.” Raffo glanced at the painting—it couldn’t be more obvious to her now. “Genuine feelings. And I don’t know how to deal with them. I have no clue.”

“For crying out loud.” Connor was obviously not ready to be understanding about this. “We’ve all been there. We’ve all had feelings for someone we shouldn’t have feelings for. It’s not as uncommon or special as you’d like to believe. We’ve all had to make an effort to get over things like that. If you can’t do that for me, your best friend, I’m not sure this is even still a friendship.”

“Oh, please.” Raffo rolled her eyes. What was Connor even talking about? Who was he referring to that he’d had to get over in his own life? “Don’t be so dramatic. It drives me up the wall.”

“And I can’t stomach the idea of you in bed with my mom, so there you go.”

When he reduced it to two selfish people consumed by desire, blind to everyone else, it sounded indefensible. But what she and Dylan shared had evolved far beyond that after their first night together.

It’s not just sex, Raffo wanted to scream. If it was, she wouldn’t still be pining for Dylan so many weeks later. She wouldn’t have painted that image of Dylan. But she didn’t want to incense Connor further by using the word sex in relation to his mother. Clearly—and she completely understood this—he couldn’t see past that.

“Maybe we should press pause,” she said instead. “Take a little breather from each other.”

“A breather? What does that even mean?” He huffed out some air. “We work together, Raffo. Your show in Chicago isn’t that far away. We have to select works. We have that thing with?—”

“Con,” Raffo said. “Look at that painting you were just admiring. That’s what I want. It’s all I want. If I can’t paint like that, I’d rather not paint at all.”

“What are you talking about? You can paint whatever you want. I just literally told you so.”

“I can’t be judged for it. Not by you.”

“I’m not judging you. I’m separating the two for the sake of our friendship.” At least he still considered them friends—for now.

“The fuck you are, Con.”

“But she’s my mom.” He shook his head. “I just… can’t.”

“I know.” Raffo was so done with this conversation. She walked into the hallway, hoping Connor would follow so she could show him out.

“I’m calling you tomorrow.” Connor stood very close to her. “Please don’t make me the bad guy in this. I love you both.” He planted a quick kiss on her cheek and walked out the door.

Connor was right. Of course he wasn’t the bad guy and none of this was even remotely his fault. If only that could be the end of it, but the problem was that it couldn’t.

Raffo shuffled back to her painting. She took a picture of it and sent it to Dylan, who had the right to see it, no matter the circumstances. Raffo just typed ‘You’ in the message. After she’d sent it, and the message showed as ‘Read’ on her screen, she couldn’t tear her gaze away from her phone. At first, for a few agonizing moments, there were the three dreaded dots as Dylan typed a message back. Then, for the rest of the night, until Raffo could no longer keep her eyes open, there was nothing.

CHAPTER 35

Dylan stared blankly at Raffo’s message, at a loss for an appropriate response. She typed and deleted, typed and deleted, until she drove herself crazy, and put her phone away.

She couldn’t look at that painting of herself any longer, either. It was much more explicit and much more recognizably her than the one Raffo had made in Big Bear. She could only hope Connor hadn’t seen it. He and Murray were finally coming to dinner, so she would soon find out.

When they arrived, Murray’s hug was noticeably warmer than Connor’s. Dylan could immediately tell Connor was in a mood. She felt sorry for him, because she was probably responsible for it.

“He and Raffo had a fight,” Murray said, not wasting any time. Maybe because he had a plane to catch later tonight and he didn’t want to leave Connor in this state.

“For the millionth time, it was not a fight,” Connor said.

“I’m sorry, darling.” Dylan couldn’t help herself. She put an arm around her son.

“In case you’re wondering, it was about you,” Connor said, contradicting himself.

Dylan didn’t know how many more times she could apologize. She had just about run out of I’m-sorries when it came to this—also because it was very difficult to actually regret her time with Raffo. If only she regretted it more, that would make everything so much easier.

“She painted you and…” Connor didn’t sound very angry, more despondent and a little sad. “Ugh, the work was so good. So exceptional. So Raffo on absolute steroids but it was you, Mom.” He scoffed. “All of you. Naked.”

“It’s art,” Murray said. “I went to see Raffo earlier to say goodbye and she showed me. It’s beautiful, Dylan. You need to see it.” Murray sounded so casual about all this.

“I have seen it. Raffo texted me a picture.”

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