Page 42 of Hometown Touchdown
We sit down, dig in, pass the plates like clockwork. It’s warm. Comfortable. A world away from the tangle of emotions I left behind on Brynn’s porch last night.
Still, somewhere between the potatoes and second helpings, I know I have to say something. I need her help.
“Hey, Mom?”
She looks up, halfway through slicing a roll. “Hm?”
“I’ve been thinking…if you still wanted to set me up with someone—like, seriously this time—I might be open to it.”
Her hand stills on the knife. “You?”
Dad glances over his tea, suddenly interested.
“Yeah,” I say, fighting the urge to backpedal. “I mean it. A real date. Not just you sending me to dinner with a fictional woman and acting surprised when Brynn’s there at the same time.”
Mom freezes. Then lifts one perfectly innocent eyebrow. “Are you accusing me of matchmaking?”
“I’m accusing you of criminally bad timing.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, folding her napkin too neatly.
“Same restaurant, same time, animals named after baked goods,” I say. “That wasn’t a coincidence.”
“I thought the names were cute,” she mutters.
Dad snorts into his glass.
“I’m serious, Mom,” I say, quieter now. “I think I’m ready to actually meet someone. No complicated past. No history to sort through. Just…new.”
She studies me for a second too long. “You’re sure?”
“I think it’s time,” I lie.
She doesn’t argue, but her smile dims just slightly. It’s soft. Faintly sad. Like she’s holding back all the things she’s notsaying. That she always loved Brynn. That maybe she still thinks we could work, if we just got over ourselves.
But I can’t keep doing this dance. Not when every look, every memory, every quiet moment between walls that used to hold us is turning me inside out.
“Okay,” she finally says. “I’ll think about it. But I’m not setting you up with the girl from yoga class again. You hated her.”
“She tried to make me meditate in the parking lot.”
“Your chakras are probably still blocked,” Dad laughs.
I roll my eyes, but I’m already halfway into the next bite of chicken, chewing like it’s going to help push down the ache in my chest.
Because the truth is, I don’t want a new girl. Ishould, though. I should want something easy, clean, untouched by the kind of heartbreak that still knots in my chest when Brynn walks into a room. But that’s not how it works, and deep down, I know it.
I asked to be set up because I’m slipping. I’m falling back into the familiar curves of something that once destroyed me. The sound of her laugh, the look in her eyes when she thinks I’m not paying attention, the way she still says my name. I know it’s all dangerous.
So I chew my dinner like it’ll quiet the noise in my chest and nod along while Mom rattles off potential yoga-class rejects.
Chapter twenty
Brynn
“Iswear,ifonemoreman tells me that I’m ‘too intimidating,’ I’m going to start punching people in the face,” Kate snaps.
Kinsey lifts her sunglasses and smirks. “You kind of are intimidating. You’re a single mom, you’ve got boss energy. Like, you can run a company and then sue your ex energy.”
