Page 136 of Spicy Ever After
His eyes soften.
“It’s one of the reasons my mom isn’t so keen about me moving out. She’s afraid I’ll turn my place into a three-bedroom rat hovel,” I stage whisper, on a roll now. “Confession: it’s not outside the realm of possibility. A bacon grease fire in a clothes-strewn rat hovel? I wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Shut up, Mercier!
But the words are already out.
Beck’s brows pinch, and he stares at me for a long moment.
Oh crap. I just broke it. Whatever attraction he had for me, I just burned to the ground. Just like my clothes-strewn rat hovel.
“So… it’s your mom… who’s worried about this scenario?” He ends the question with a head tilt that I’m not sure how to interpret.
“Um… yes?”
His head tilt angles down just a little more pointedly. “Just her?”
I’ll be the first to admit that I miss a lot of subtext. I think I was fifteen before I really got sarcasm. Growing up, picking up on tone was like trying to learn a second language. And not even one of the easy ones. But the Slavic kind with the weird alphabet.
“Are you implying that I’m the one who’s worried?”
Beck purses his lips in thought, which is really unfair because it distracts the hell out of me.
“Are you?”
I blink at him. Of course I am worried. It’s just by the grace of Merrick that I’m not looking at group homes or conservatorship. The people who know me best—who’ve known me the longest—have real doubts about me managing on my own.
Which means I have doubts too. How could I not?
But even though Beck is really good at making me feel safe, sharing these doubts with him feels decidedly unsafe.
I never want him to doubt that I can take care of myself. That I am independent.
That I am his equal.
I need to steer this conversation away from that particular ravine. So I swallow hard, pushing down these doubts that want to bob to the surface like crab trap buoys.
“Not… really,” I try to lie with confidence, but I’ve always been a terrible liar.
Beck watches me for a bit, and I’m pretty sure he knows I’m full of shit because the glint in his eye says I’m not fooling him.
For a long moment, I’m sure he’s going to press me about it. And then I’ll spill the whole ugly story about supported decision-making and power of attorney and a long-term care trust.
Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up all over again.
But when Beck opens his mouth, it’s not to question my competence.
“Can I tell you something bad?” he asks, wincing a little.
My heart takes a nosedive and my worst fear yeats from me. “Are you breaking up with me?”
Beck’s mouth drops open and his brows slam together. “No! God, no.”
In the next instant, he has shoved our plates aside and hauled me into his lap.
“Hattie, look at me.” Beck takes my face in both his hands, but he doesn’t need to. I don’t want to look at anything else. His emphatic no has all of my attention, and I want to hear more.
“Being with you? It’s the one thing in my life that doesn’t feel like… like climbing Everest. Everything else?—”
