Page 25 of Perfectly Grumpy

What can I say? Optimism is just denial with better PR.

“I don’t get it,” I whisper. “I didn’t even know they were close.”

“They weren’t,” Olivia says. “But according to Aunt Tammy, they reconnected about ten months ago.”

“Ten months?” I ask, thinking through the math. “That was when Mom died.”

My sister’s eyes flick away. “They reconnected at Mom’s funeral.”

“Is this a joke? Bart picked up a new girlfriend at my own mother’s funeral?”

She doesn’t respond, and I press my lips together to keep from saying something I’ll regret. Maybe Abby just didn’t think it through. Or maybe she did. I honestly don’t know.

“I’m not saying Abby meant to stir anything up,” Olivia adds. “But I know this iscomplicated.”

That’s an understatement.

Because no matter how over Bart I am, the last thing I want to deal with this summer is him.

“But why?” I say, staring at the wall, my appetite suddenly gone. “He said our family reunion was like a weirdo conventionand that he’d rather stay in his parents’ basement playing video games.”

“I don’t know, but I didn’t want you to be blindsided,” Olivia says.

“Well, that decides it,” I say, setting my plate down on the coffee table. “I’m not going to the reunion.”

“Lauren,” she gasps. “Youhaveto come. You can’t leave me alone with Granny and all the aunts!”

“Liv, they allloveyou. They adore Jake and the kids. They don’t pepper you with questions like they do me.”

“Well, Dad needs us there.”

Oh, great.The Dad card.

“That’s the other reason I don’t want to go. Too many memories.” Mom only lived eight more weeks after our last reunion. Everything there will remind me of her—which is exactly why I can’t go alone.

“Please? I need you there,” she pleads quietly. “I can’t run this without you and Mom.”

When I don’t immediately answer, she adds, “It’s Dad’s first reunion without her.”

I spin the ring on my finger, torn between helping my family and protecting the heart I’ve been trying to piece back together since Mom’s death.

When Olivia agreed to take over the reunion, I was relieved. Grateful, even. I couldn’t even look at the sign-up form without feeling like my chest might split wide open.

But I made a promise—to keep the tradition going, to be the glue when everyone else drifted.

“Family is one of the only things that matters in the end, Lauren,”Mom had said before she died. It was the kind of moment you don’t forget. Because when everything’s stripped away, you start to see what really matters.

But that was before I knew about Bart and Abby. Before I realized grief doesn’t follow a tidy timeline with a beginning,middle, and end. It just sits there, waiting to ambush you when you least expect it.

And now, the last thing I want is to show up and act like I’m fine.

“But you have the kids and Jake,” I say, “while I have just me.”

“That’s why I was hoping the guy in the picture…” Her voice fades before I realize what she means. She wasn’t upset at me for not telling her about the picture. She washopeful.She wanted me to have good news, something that would take our minds off missing Mom.

That’s when the idea forms in my mind like a tiny sparkly gem. Tate wouldn’t have to come to the reunion. He wouldn’t even have toknow.

I could just show everyone the pictures of us and let them assume, just like how it happened on social media without me saying a word.

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