Page 40 of P.S. I Miss You

I glance at Tucker who’s at the kitchen table, scarfing down a short stack drenched in sticky brown liquid.

“How many?” she asks.

I don’t normally eat breakfast, but I can’t remember the last time I had homemade pancakes, and not the kind you pop in the toaster or microwave.

Actually I can remember.

It was the morning before Mom left. She was in a particularly good mood, which I thought was odd. It didn’t make sense at the time.

It made sense the last day.

I guess the breakfast feast she prepared for her husband and sons was a sick swan song of sorts.

Melrose places three steamy pancakes on a plate and hands it to me. All this time she’s been here, I’ve never actually witnessed her cook. And all this time, I’d assumed she’d grown up with a maid and a butler and a chef, but she claimed last night that she wasn’t raised as some spoiled princess.

I take a seat across from my brother, who wipes a drip of syrup off his chin before giving me a thumbs up and a huge grin.

It’s nice to see him happy, genuinely happy.

In this moment, there’s no drunk father, absent mother, screaming girlfriend, booze-soaked carpet, or dilapidated trailer.

There’s only Tucker.

And me.

And pancakes.

And Melrose.

But as incredible as this is, I don’t let myself get attached. No matter how remarkable a woman is, one of two things inevitably happen:

They leave. Because that’s what women do.

Or I fuck it up by leaving first when shit gets too real.

I’ve never been one to sit and wait around for the other shoe to drop, so I tend to get the hell out of there before the first one comes off in the first place.

Melrose clicks off the burner on the stove and joins us at the table with her own plate.

“What’s the plan today?” she signs, eyes moving from mine to Tucker’s.

I shrug. Tucker shrugs.

“We’ll figure something out,” I reply. “You?”

“My grandma has some banquet. She’s getting some lifetime achievement award or something, so the whole family’s going to that,” she says before turning to my brother, making a silly face and signing, “Boring stuff.”

Tucker laughs, eyes lit and smile huge.

He’s completely taken with her.

And I get it now.

She’s pretty great.

But I’ll be damned if I tell her that.

THE GANG’S ALL HERE: Gram, Mom, Dad, Maritza, Isaiah, Aunt Catherine, and Uncle Charles.

And Gram’s guy friend—whom she still swears is “just a friend” despite the fact that he brought her lilies today with a few red roses mixed in.

“Okay, so tell me about this guy,” Maritza says, her elbow perched on the white linen tablecloth as she leans in.

“What guy?” I reach for my champagne.

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t play dumb with me. The roommate.”

“The roommate?” I chuckle. “So is that what you guys are calling him now?”

Maritza laughs. “Gram insists he’s the one for you.”

“She met him once. Once.” I take another sip. “And trust me, he’s not The One. I don’t even believe in that stuff.”

I glance toward Isaiah, who’s deep in a conversation with my father, though his hand is still clasping hers under the table. They’re so adorable it’s disgusting sometimes.

“When can I meet him?” she asks. “Like I know we saw him at Gram’s that one day, but that was in passing. Can we stop by sometime?”

“Maritza,” I say, chin tucked and voice low. “He’s my roommate. He’s not my boyfriend. Therefore, you don’t need to come over to meet him.”

“Melrose,” she says, copying my intonation. “He’s your roommate, but clearly you like him. The second I brought him up, you got this smile on your face that you immediately hid with your champagne flute.”

I did?

“Whatever.” I take another sip, this time finishing the glass. Scanning the room, I search for another penguin-suited, tray-carrying saint so I can procure another.

Gram accepted her lifetime achievement award an hour ago, so now we’re all socializing and cocktail-ing while we wait for dinner to be served.

“Come to the bathroom with me,” she says, rising from the table, releasing Isaiah’s hold and linking her arm through my elbow.

“O … okay.”

We head to the ladies’ room in a hurry, and I get the sense that she has some major bombshell to drop on me, something she can’t mention in front of everyone else.

“Oh my God,” I say when we get inside. “You’re pregnant.”

Her nose scrunches and she swats at me. “No. God, no. We’re so not there yet.”

“Then why’d you yank me in here like a crazy person?”

Maritza turns toward her reflection in the mirror, smoothing her dark hair into place and straightening the vintage Tiffany and Co chandelier earrings she borrowed from Gram.

“You’ve never lied to me before,” she begins.

“Never.”

“You’re one of the most honest people I’ve ever known.”

“Where are you going with this?” I ask.

Maritza turns to me, one hand on her lanky hip. “I don’t get why you can’t be honest with yourself. That’s all.”

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