He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Why do you care?”
Gone were the days when her little man would talk her ear off about anything and everything. Gone were the days of sharing his excitements with her along with his fears.
“I just want to know your friends, honey. Isn’t that pretty normal for a mom?”
“It’s fine.” He stirred the pot of ramen and added some green onions he’d chopped himself. “They’re all on the basketball team, which means their grades are good and they’re, like, well-behaved and stuff.”
“It’s not about that.” It was kinda about that. “I just want to know the boys you’re spending time with. Want to know who their parents are. Their families.”
“Well, like half of them are related to Toni and Nico, so you know a bunch of them.”
“And the other half?”
Adam looked as if he were being tortured or interrogated in a darkened room or something. “Mom, it’s not a big deal.”
“It is to me.” She put her fists on her hips. “What is up with you lately?”
“Nothing!” He took the pot of ramen, poured it into a serving bowl, and carried the whole thing toward the hallway leading back to the bedrooms.
“Young man, we are not done speaking.”
He turned, a pained expression on his face. “What?”
Adam was dancing right on the edge. He knew that out-and-out disrespect would make his life a world of hurt, so he was juuuuuuust skating to the edge, pretending like she was the unreasonable one for asking so many questions.
It was a technique his father had used many, many times, a way of minimizing her concerns and insinuating that she was overreacting even when she wasn’t.
Oh no, Adam Conroy Carpenter. We are not repeating this pattern. Not even a little bit.
Megan walked over, her arms crossed over her a chest. She stood in front of Adam and looked up. “Young man, you better be real careful right now with how you’re addressing your mother.”
“What?”
She raised an eyebrow and saw his haughty expression fall. “What is going on with you lately?”
There was a flash of something small and sad and needy before he hid it with adolescent bravado. “It’s just stuff with Dad and this new woman. I didn’t want to say anything to you because… it’s, like, embarrassing.”
“You think I’m embarrassed about your father dating?”
He shrugged. “Aren’t you, like, jealous or something?”
“Oh no.” She shook her head. “Thank you for being considerate, but I really do not care about your daddy dating at this point. I am way past caring about that. Now, when he dates women three years older than your sister—”
“Oh my God, that was the worst.” Adam’s cheeks were bright red, bless him. He’d inherited his father’s coloring.
“If it helps, I have met the most recent woman and she’s a normal age.”
“Okay.” He looked away. “Cool, I guess.”
Megan still sensed there was something else going on. Something was bothering her boy, but she also knew how to pick her battles. He’d softened a bit—pushing him too hard would undo that.
“You can talk to me about anything, you know.” Megan leaned against the entryway wall. “Even if it seems embarrassing, I’d rather you just tell me and not keep it bottled up. That’s not healthy.”
“I know.”
“And I’m really not the meanest mom ever. I’m cool with stuff.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Mom, I know.”
“I mean, I’m hip.” She struck a pose. “With it. I know how to dance.” She started doing the Running Man in the middle of the entryway. Okay, it wasn’t as smooth as when she was Adam’s age, but it was close.
Adam closed his eyes. “Oh my God, Mom, please stop. Nobody does that anymore.”
“What are you talking about?” She kept going. “Don’t y’all do the Running Man anymore? I thought the nineties were cool again?”
“Not your version of it.”
“I’m sorry—I can’t hear you past the rhythm of my moves.”
Adam couldn’t stop laughing. “You need to stop so you don’t, like, hurt your hip or something.”
“Oh, you little shit.” She stopped and tried to nudge the back of his knee to trip him. “I’ll show you a hurt hip.”
Adam dodged her and laughed all the way down the hall. “Okay, bye. Good talk.”
“Love you, baby.” Megan watched him go, feeling a little lighter in her heart but still harboring the suspicion that something else was bothering her boy.
Then she headed to the kitchen to look for some ibuprofen because she could already tell that in a few hours, her hips were going to be screaming.
Chapter 12
After the long-planned-for Harrington wedding on Saturday afternoon, Megan was more than happy to make a cold side dish and hand over the rest of her weekend plans to the Dusi family extravaganza. She showed up at Frank and Jackie Dusi’s giant house overlooking the ocean with two kids, a large bowl of potato salad, and a mind half-full of dread.
She didn’t dread Toni’s family. Far from it, in fact. What she dreaded was the lingering suspicion that Drew Bisset had planted in her mind. Could one of these amazing, hilarious, and nosy people be the cause of Nico and Henry’s loss?
Even more, could they actually have taken a turn so violent that someone ended up in a shallow grave?
She walked up the long sloping driveway, passing a line of pickup trucks, small SUVs, and a few old station wagons. Family dinner for Toni’s clan usually ran between fifty and seventy-five people, with a few outsiders welcome and a whole lot of help from the entire family pitching in. The grandmas and aunties ran the kitchen part of the dinner while the grandpas and uncles ran the giant grill smoking in a corner of the yard.
And when Megan said giant, she meant giant. This was a trailer-style grill, the likes she’d only seen in rural California. An entire side of beef could be cooked on this charcoal-burning contraption with room for a few chickens around the outside.
And it smelled delicious. As they walked toward the backyard, the scent of smoke, salt, and garlic filled the air.
“Mom, can I go find Katherine?” Trina asked.
“I don’t know if she and Baxter are coming today, but sure, you can look.”
Cami stuck close to Megan. “Is Adam already here?”
“He was coming with his friends, so I think so.” Megan had tried to gently pry about what was going on that morning. She’d tried to ask him about school and get him animated about whatever he was doing on the basketball team. Unfortunately, he’d completely shut down again.
She put an arm around her youngest and felt Cami hug her back as they walked. “Hey, Cam, how has Adam been at school? Do you see him much?”
“Not really. The freshman and sophomores are on the shady side of the building, and the seniors and juniors are on the sunny side.”
“Bummer.”
“Ariel says it’s not, because she said the older kids used to really pick on the younger kids and this was the way they solved it. I only see Adam at assemblies.”