“You two need to try to figure out what’s best for Max. And you got some time to get that done before Max gets home. Then if that Travati man is willing, you ought to present a unified front to your boy. I tell ya, two parents standing firm means a lot more to a kid than two parents divided. Especially when they’re teenagers.”
Aubrey nodded. She stood to leave.
“And Aubrey?”
Aubrey looked at Dad.
“A boy needs his father, but a man, he always loves his mama.”
Aubrey’s lips burst into a weepy smile. God, she hoped so. God, she did.
Chapter 10
“Are you okay?” Nina tilted her head and examined Aubrey.
Aubrey pulled at her black dress and touched the edges of her sleeves. Was she okay? No. Not exactly. She was walking and talking and pretending like everything was normal, but nothing was the same anymore. For three days she’d sat with the words Dad had said and the knowledge that Justin was in the Rockwater Suite. She couldn’t wait much longer. Soon, if she didn’t go to speak to Justin, he would come to her. Her entire carefully crafted existence was ripping apart, being shredded by the truth that she’d tried to ignore for years.
“I’m fine,” she said, and pasted a smile to her lips. The scents of freshly roasted pork and beef and caramelized onion and garlic wafted through the air. Usually her stomach would growl and she’d head to the chef’s table in the kitchen to taste every course offered to the guests that evening so that she might have a coherent conversation with them about the different flavors and techniques Nina had used to prepare their meal.
“Tasting?” Nina asked and turned toward the kitchen.
“I have a couple of things I need to do on the computer before service starts.”
Nina’s face revealed her worry. Again Aubrey smiled and walked away from her sister. She didn’t want to talk about her decisions about Max and Justin. She entered her office, sat at her desk, and opened the spreadsheet on her computer. She would crunch numbers, a task that always took her mind off her worries. Her Skype beeped and she pressed the icon. Incoming from Max.
Her heart thudded in her chest. What to say? How to act? God, she couldn’t tell him now, on his fifth day of camp, that his father was here. Especially after how they’d left things when she dropped Max off at Camp Willow. She clicked on the video-call icon and plastered a false smile to her lips. Maybe he wouldn’t notice.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hey! How’s camp?” Her false falsetto rang high in her ears. Better pull it back or he’d know for certain something was up.
“’Kay, I guess.”
“Thought calls were for Sundays?”
“Not this week. We can go to the computer room any evening and call out. Just have to ask first.”
“I see. So what did you do today?”
Max looked away from the screen. There, in his profile, was the strong Travati chin and nose. She closed her eyes for a brief second. Dear God, he looked so similar to his father. He pushed his hand through his hair. He seemed older, as though in the few days since she’d left him at Camp Willow he’d gone from a boy to nearly a man. “My phone got confiscated. They put me on morning kitchen prep for a week.”
“That shouldn’t be too tough for you. You’ve been helping out for nearly a decade in one of the finest kitchens in the world.”
“Not like that,” he said, a smirk on his face. “They’ve got me peeling spuds and cracking eggs. No lobster or foie gras here.” Finally a smile. Or a hint of smile. She’d take it. For the rest of her life, she’d take any smile from Max she could get because she feared that soon those smiles would be in short supply where she was concerned.
“Only a week?” she asked, trying to make lemonade out of Max’s lemons.
“Yeah.” He glanced around the room and then turned back to the screen. He leaned forward. There were those eyes, those green eyes with flecks of amber from his father.
A gasp. Damn, he looked so very Travati.
“Listen, there’s something I didn’t tell you, and I kind of need to, you know. Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“I don’t know. Listen, Mom, okay? Just listen.” He rubbed his hands together and sat back in his chair, then clutched the edge of the computer desk and leaned forward again.
What could possibly have happened at Camp Willow that had Max this nervous? He’d already copped to having his phone confiscated and getting kitchen detail, what else could he have done? Sneaking into girls’ cabins? Drinking? Weed? Oh my God, he was still too young for weed.