Page 20 of Fierce-Colson

“You said he never seemed intimidated by you. I’m assuming you’re talking about Colson since the conversation started with him. And if that is the case, the answer is no. He never has. He’s always asked about you too.”

That was new to her. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”

“Why would I?” her mother asked.

She let out a breath. “I don’t know. I just thought it’d come up in passing.”

“Well, maybe if I knew you had a thing for him again, I would have.”

“I don’t have a thing for him,” she argued.

“You keep telling yourself that. But next time you give that speech in the mirror, just remember I taught you everything you know.”

Her mother’s laughter wasn’t lost on her, so she did what was best.

She stopped talking.

5

GO DOWN THAT ROAD

“Thanks for having us for dinner,” Colson said on Sunday. “Saves me from cooking.”

“That was one thing you hated to do.”

“He still hates it,” Bella said, moving to the fridge and helping herself.

That was the thing about his mother.

She could put up with a lot of shit in life. She had to have been able to in order to be married to his father for as long as she had.

Fifteen years. Fourteen years too long in his eyes.

But she’d gotten pregnant in their first year of marriage and held on longer than she should have.

The woman in this room was how he held onto his sanity.

How he could bounce back and even turn things smelly into citrus.

“Maybe some people in this kitchen could learn to cook.”

“Can I?” Bella asked. “I can learn. I’d like to.”

“Then do it,” he said. “But not unless I’m home. I don’t need to worry about you burning the house down.”

“You set the alarm off two weeks ago.”

His mother laughed. “It wasn’t my fault,” he argued. “I was on the phone.”

“Then you should have turned the burner down,” his mother said.

“Or someone could have watched it and turned the chicken over,” he said, looking right at Bella. “But that would mean getting off her phone.”

They had phone rules and he was positive she broke them when he wasn’t around. Or in bed at night.

But you weren’t a kid if you weren’t bending the rules a little.

“How is school going, Bella?”