“I know.” Riley leaned forward to turn up the heat that he’d turned down five
seconds earlier. His eyes flicked from the road down to his truck’s thermostat, but
instead of giving the expected my car, my rules lecture, he merely turned his eyes
back to the road with a resigned look.
Riley didn’t like that. Not one bit.
Come to think of it, she wasn’t liking the way he’d been acting the past few days.
He wasn’t quite distant. He wasn’t quite grumpy. But he was different.
He was careful. And no matter how much she smiled—no matter how hard she
tried to get him to smile—she was desperately afraid that things were shifting in
the wrong direction. She sensed he was pushing her away, and desperate times
called for desperate measures.
And desperate measures meant going with him to visit her.
“Did you tell your mom I was coming?” Riley asked, turning to stare out the
window.
“Nope. Because until you climbed into my car an hour ago, I didn’t know you were
coming.”
She turned to look at him. “I told you yesterday I would.”
“And I told you yesterday that I didn’t want you to,” he snapped.
Sam still wouldn’t look at her, but it didn’t take a genius to see he was pissed. His
jaw was tight, his knuckles were white, and his tone was curt.
She reached across the car, her hand landing on his upper thigh. “Look, it’ll be
good for her to get to know me. In all the years she lived just a couple of streets
over, I only met her a handful of times, and—”
“My mother doesn’t want to get to know you,” Sam said, brushing her hand off.
“I’m not even sure she wants to know me, much less a tagalong wannabe
girlfriend.”
It stung. It really stung. She turned her head away so he couldn’t see her
expression, but her sharp intake of breath gave her away.
“Ri—” His voice was regretful, but he didn’t reach out to touch her.
“It’s fine,” she said, forcing a tight smile. “I know things with your mother are
difficult. It would bring out the worst in anyone.”
He muttered something she couldn’t make out, and they drove the rest of the way
in tense silence. In hindsight, a five-hour drive to visit a woman who didn’t want
to see her, with a man who didn’t want her company, hadn’t been her best
decision. But she knew—she knew—that dealing with his mother and her bag of
issues was a crucial step in taking their relationship any further.
Riley was so lost in thought, she barely registered that they’d come to a stop in
front of a run-down house in a long row of other run-down houses. Riley had only
been upstate once or twice as a kid, and always to quaint little lake towns. Calling
this part of Watertown, New York, quaint would be a stretch. It looked … tired. A
handful of the yards were kept up nicely, and some of the homes had cute little
shutters, but the majority were a jumble of peeling paint, junk in the front yard,
and weeds.
The house Sam had parked in front of wasn’t the worst of the street. But it was
close.
“Home sweet home,” he said grimly, as he cupped her elbow and led her toward
the front door.
Her hands went a little clammy. One of the unexpected benefits of never having
a serious boyfriend after Dan was that she’d never had to do this whole meet-
the-parents routine. She understood why this moment got such a bad rap in
relationships. It sucked.
“Don’t let her get under your skin,” Sam muttered in her ear as he lifted a hand to
knock. “We’re here to make sure she’s alive, wish her a happy birthday, and—”
Riley’s eyes went wide as she glanced in horror at his tense profile. “It’s her
birthday?”
But it was too late for him to explain why he’d forgotten to mention that tiny fact,
and too late for her to freak out over their not even having a sappy card, because
the door opened.
And there was Helena Compton, looking every bit as unpleasant as Riley
remembered her, and just as mean. No. Meaner.
“Sam,” the blonde said without so much as a hint of a smile. Her gaze shifted to
Riley, and Riley wondered how her eyes could be so identical to her son’s in
shape and that distinct pale blue color, and yet so different in expression. Sam’s
were guarded, yes, but they could also be warm and kind.
Helena’s eyes were—Riley didn’t even have the right word—cold? cruel?
She stepped aside and let them in, which Riley supposed was a good start.
“Happy birthday,” she managed as she stepped into the small home. It smelled