She stood up, her arms outstretched for a hug. Gavin didn’t feel comfortable embracing her, but refusing would be rude, so he accepted the hug, keeping it quick.
He gestured to his dates. “You remember Oliver and Erin.”
His mother nodded, the smile she’d given him fading to something that looked a lot more forced. “Of course I do.”
“It’s nice to see you again, Ms. Hawke,” Erin said, and Gavin could have kissed her for the polite lie. Despite their reservations about his mother and this reunion, neither of them would treat her disrespectfully because they cared about him. They were here to support him, not make things harder.
“Please, call me Cecilia.”
Erin nodded, and the four of them sat down before picking up their menus.
“The crab cakes are really good here,” Gavin said to his mother.
She shrugged slightly. “Shellfish doesn’t agree with me.”
Gavin didn’t know that. Not that they’d had money to buy fresh fish when he was younger. The majority of their meals came from cans, easy things he could heat up in a pan or microwave.
“The burgers are good too,” Oliver offered.
Mom didn’t even glance in Oliver’s direction or acknowledge that he’d spoken.
“I think I’m going for the salad with grilled chicken,” Erin said when the silence shifted into the awkward range. “I’ve already started to pack on my extra holiday weight and we haven’t even gotten to Christmas Day yet.”
Gavin chuckled. “You look amazing, Erin. Always.”
He felt his mother watching him as he spoke, and he wondered what she was thinking. He’d never brought anyone home with him from school—male or female—because he was never sure which mother was going to be waiting for him. As such, it occurred to him she’d never really seen him in any relationship—friendship or romance—with anyone that wasn’t her.
“I thought you might become a chef, Gavin. You were always in our kitchen, cooking something up.”
Gavin nodded, swallowing down an uncharitable retort. He cooked because she was always too tired. “I like to eat, so I cook. I wouldn’t say it’s a passion or anything.”
“He’s an incredible builder,” Oliver said. “You should see this guy on the construction site. Plumbing, electrical work, there’s nothing he can’t do.”
Once again, Mom ignored Oliver.
“You’re rebuilding that pub, the place where you lived before the fire?” she asked Gavin.
“Yeah. Well, not me alone. I work for Oliver’s uncles and Sean at… Well, we’re rebuilding it.”
Mom glanced just briefly at Erin before turning her attention back to Gavin. “And you’ll move back in there once it’s completed?”
While there was nothing wrong with her questions, Gavin bristled at the idea of sharing any private information with her. He’d even stopped himself from giving her the name of the construction company he worked for.
“That’s the plan,” Erin answered for him.
Finally, his mother acknowledged someone else at the table besides him. “All three of you?”
Erin was clearly made of sterner stuff than he was. “Yep. Roommates typically live together.”
The waiter came to take their orders, and Gavin bit his tongue when his mother ordered another glass of wine.
Once the waiter left, Erin, as always, found a way to fill the silence, telling them all a cute story about one of the interns dressing up as Santa for the kids in the pediatric ward, then launching right into her adventures shopping for a Christmas gift for her grandparents. Erin was blessed with the gift of gab as well as a wicked sense of humor. Gavin was never more grateful for that than now, when he was struggling to think of a single thing to say to his mother.
Mom was quiet, and Gavin wasn’t even certain she was listening. Unlike he and Oliver, she didn’t ask questions or make comments, and she looked slightly bored.
Gavin focused his attention on Erin and for a little while, he could almost pretend this dinner was like the hundred others he, Erin, and Oliver had shared together over the past year.
The food arrived, providing them a chance to talk about something else mundane and safe. He and Oliver had gone for the crab cakes, Erin the salad, and his mother ordered pasta carbonara, though she ate little of it and instead moved it around on her plate.
“Is it not good?” Gavin asked after a few minutes. “Should we send it back?”
Mom smiled at him, reaching over to place her hand on his. “You always did take such good care of me,” she said, as if that answered his question. “Always fretting and worrying about me.”
“Would you like to order something else?” he asked, resisting the urge to pull his hand away from hers.
“I got all your packages,” she said, ignoring his question again.
“Packages?” Oliver murmured.
This time, there was no denying that his mother was pointedly ignoring Oliver.
“It was so sweet of you to remember me. All those years.”
Gavin shrugged, wishing he could think of some way to change the subject.
“What packages?” Erin repeated Oliver’s question.
Mom turned her attention to Erin and smiled, though the gesture didn’t feel friendly as much as threatening. “Every year I was away, Gavin brought me birthday and Christmas gifts. So thoughtful. Not that I should have been surprised. No matter how many times the state took him away from me, Gavin always fought to get back to me.”
He wasn’t sure he’d use the word fight. The state brought him back. Those words pounded in Gavin’s brain, but now, like always, he didn’t say them aloud. He considered the foster families he’d been taken to live with, suddenly seeing them with different eyes. He’d always thought them cold, unfeeling people just using the system to get a paycheck. But it occurred to him, a lot of those homes hadn’t been bad at all, the foster parents genuinely wanting to help him.
His feelings for them had been driven by his mother. She’d been the one to tell him foster parents were bad, that they didn’t want him, that no one would ever want him. Then she’d always insist that she was the only person who would ever love him.
He’d lived over half his life believing himself unlovable. Because of her.
What was he doing at this table?
“You took her gifts?” Oliver asked softly.
Gavin swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Such a good son,” Mom said, though it wasn’t clear if she was responding to Oliver or trying to manipulate him. She leaned close to Gavin once more. “You’ve always taken care of me. You know…you don’t have to rebuild that pub. Maybe you and I…” She let her sentence fade there, the unspoken words hovering in the air.
And that was when he saw it…the slightly unhinged look in her eye, and the slightest smell of whiskey on her breath. She hadn’t started with the wine.
This was a mistake. A big fucking mistake.
“I…” Gavin cleared his throat, fighting to say just that, but he couldn’t be sure what her response would be. They were in public. And Oliver and Erin were there. He didn’t want to subject them to…Jesus…her brand of crazy if this all went south.