Page 55 of Our Secret Summer

Connor refilled their glasses, knocked another shot back and gazed into Raffo’s eyes. “I’m listening,” he said.

“You know that when I’m painting, I have to feel it. If I don’t feel it, I might as well forget it.” Raffo thought of that cat-shaped cloud she’d tried to paint for days on end while stubbornly refusing to paint the only subject she’d really wanted to devote her time to. “If I don’t feel it, I might as well not paint at all.”

Connor nodded. He wasn’t an artist, but Raffo knew that he understood completely. Connor had got it—and her—from the first time they’d met.

“Okay.” Raffo gulped down another shot of tequila as she worked up to her conclusion. “Earlier, at Mia’s, it hit me so clearly, Con. The reason why I didn’t relent when she told me she still loved me, and that I’m well on my way to being over her, that I no longer want to be with her and no longer consider her the greatest woman I’ve ever met. It’s all because… it’s because of your mom.” Raffo swallowed slowly. “Dylan helped me in ways I can’t put into words. She was there for me so unexpectedly but so completely. She took care of me, Con. She really did. She gave me something that I didn’t know I needed, and it moved me deeply. For the sake of our friendship, I was desperate to believe it was just a fleeting rebound thing, but I now know it was so much more than that. Itisso much more than that. She made me feel like myself again. She gave me back my mojo. She’s all I want to paint and that tells me all I need to know.” Raffo’s throat went dry. She glanced at her empty glass.

Connor took the hint and refilled it.

“Check my phone,” he said.

The notes app was still open on Connor’s phone.

Raffo <3 my mom, it read.

Raffo swiftly knocked back her third shot. Of course he knew. What else would she need tequila for to tell him?

Connor let his forehead fall against his spread out fingertips. “You’re miserable. Mom’s not herself. Murray’s on my case all the time about love being love. It’s hardly been an enjoyable situation for anyone, but what do you want me to do? Give you my blessing to date my mom? Do you know how profoundly weird that is?” He found her gaze. His eyes were a little watery, which could be due to the tequila. “There are things I simply can’t think about, okay? I just can’t. And you and me, we talk about everything. We’re so open with each other and I’m so scared that this will change us forever. And the timing, Raff. It’s all happening for you right now. You’re going places.Weare going places because I’m going with you on this journey.” He interjected with a sigh. “But what I’m most afraid of is that two people I love so fucking much will end up hurting each other because I can’t just believe this will magically work out, Raff. That you and my mom will be happy forever and everything will be hunky-dory. I’m terrified that things will never be the same between us.”

“Things have already changed between us,” Raffo said.

“That’s true enough.” Connor filled their glasses again.

Raffo happily drank. She didn’t know how else to deal with asking her best friend if she could date his mother.

“This shouldn’t be up to me,” Connor said. “I want nothing more than for you and my mom to find love again, to have a Murray in your life, but fuck, why does it have to be with each other?”

“Look at it this way, Con. You’re a great guy. There are so many reasons why you are my best friend. We have this chemistry, this undefinable thing between us. Maybe it’s only logical that I would also have something like that with your mom. She made you.” Raffo was beginning to slur her words—and talk nonsense. “She’s just as wonderful as you, that’s why I like her so much.”

“What about my dad?” Connor was hardly still sober either. “He made me too.”

“I’m not that into dads,” Raffo said. “If I’d met your mother, you know, like properly met her and spent time with her, at any other time in my life, meaning before Mia dumped me, this would never have happened. It was something that only happened because of the headspace I was in, but also the physical place I was in, at your mom’s house in Big Bear. It was all of those things but most of all it’s because she’s such an incredible woman.”

“I know my mom is great, but—” He didn’t continue, because all that needed to be said was in that ‘but’. The ‘but’ that would always be there.

Raffo gathered all her courage. “I know it’s too much to ask, but I’m asking you, anyway.”

“Oh, god.” Connor groaned. “Don’t. You don’t need my permission, Raff. That’s just so wrong.”

“Permission is the wrong word for it, but I do need something from you.”

“How about another shot?” Connor asked. “Will that do?”

Raffo understood that Connor couldn’t say it. He couldn’t spell it out for her. It was unrealistic to expect him to.

“Yes,” she said, because she had to take what she could get.

CHAPTER 37

Connor had made a reservation at their favorite Korean restaurant. Dylan was running late because her job interview had lasted much longer than expected. The three people who had interviewed her had all been at least ten years younger than her, one of them probably closer to twenty. She felt old and insecure, but also grateful that Connor had invited her to dinner. It was his way of supporting her after a stressful day.

Dylan rushed into the restaurant, gave Connor’s name to the maître d’, and followed her inside.

Dylan froze. Connor wasn’t there—instead, Raffo sat at a table for two by the wall, and Dylan’s heart couldn’t decide between soaring or sinking. Min-ji, the restaurant’s owner, was Raffo’s friend, so of course Raffo might be here. But tonight? When Dylan was supposed to meet her son, with whom things hadn’t completely returned to normal? She hadn’t seen Connor since the night Murray had left. The only communication they’d had was this dinner invitation he’d extended this morning, when he’d called to wish her luck with her interview—he’d always been a wonderfully attentive son in that regard, no matter what was going on.

Dylan’s head spun. Raffo looked gorgeous, and the thought that she might be here on a date with someone else made Dylan’s stomach clench.

The maître d’ stopped at the table Raffo was sitting at.

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