Chapter 8

Piper

I felt guilty about how little I’d seen of my parents recently. We were close. Granted, my relationship with my mom had been strained after her affair. We’d both had to work toward repairing the damage between us. I’d also needed to grow up a lot.

Before the affair, I’d had some romantic illusion of my parents’ marriage. In it, they’d been madly in love when my mom got pregnant with me at sixteen. I’d seen their marriage as being the stuff romance novels were made of.

There was no denying my parents loved each other, but they’d drifted apart through the years. Being parents and struggling to build my dad’s company had left them with little time for each other. Neither had known how to bridge the gap that had developed between them. When I’d gone to confront my mom about the affair, she’d already told my dad. They’d been fighting when I’d gotten home.

While my parents might have lost the passion in their relationship over the years, they’d still had a strong friendship. With that kind of love, they’d been able to move past what had happened, and even fall in love with each other again. My parents now reminded me that love wasn’t like a romance novel; it was hard work.

“Piper!” my mom called out as I made my way into the hole in the wall diner we’d been going to since I was a little girl.

“Hi, Mom!”

She immediately stood to hug me. “I’ve missed you so much,” she said as she squeezed tighter.

“I’ve missed you, too, Mom. It’s too bad Dad couldn’t make it.”

“He really wanted to be here, but the new business manager he hired made a mess of things while we were on vacation,” she explained.

“Is he trying to talk you into taking the job again?” I asked. My mom had filled that role for many years.

“No,” she replied. “He knows I love teaching too much to quit.”

“How was your vacation?” I asked. My parents had just returned from a ten-day cruise that coincided with winter break.

“Amazing!” my mom replied. “All we did was eat and relax the entire time. I feel like a new woman. Your dad thinks we should go to Hawaii next summer, but we’ll have to see if it’s in the budget. He’s not taking on nearly as many clients as he used to.”

“Dad needs to hire more people to work under him.” I had told my dad the same thing on many occasions.

“I agree, but your dad’s never been good at delegating,” she reminded me.

Our waitress came to take our orders. I’d run earlier so I could justify my BLT to Cerise. That woman was unforgiving when it came to bacon.

“How was your opening night?” my mom asked. “I heard Austin’s band played. How is he doing?”

My mom didn’t know about what had happened with Austin. She didn’t even know that I’d heard about her affair before she and my dad sat me down to talk about why they were separating while they tried to fix their marriage. I preferred to keep it that way.

“The opening was great,” I replied. “Reckless Release put on a good show. The audience loved them.”

“Do you still have a crush on Austin?” she asked.

I quite literally spit water across the table. My mom looked down at her sweater and then back up at me. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“No,” I replied. “I do not have a crush on Austin. Yes, I thought he was cute when we were kids, but I’ve grown up. He’s grown up.” Putting images of grown up Austin in my mind wasn’t helping me remember why I had no interest in getting involved with him as anything more than friends.

“Did he ask you out?” my mom asked.

I stared at my mom as if she’d lost her mind. “Why would he ask me out?”

“You’ve grown up a lot since he last saw you,” she pointed out. “Austin always liked you. I figured that when he saw you again, he’d ask you out.”

My mom still read those romance novels where true love triumphs. Apparently, we hadn’t learned the same lesson from her affair. I’d complain, but I loved that about my mom. She was still a hopeless romantic after everything that had happened.

She looked so disappointed, I had to give her something. “He wants to get together as friends.”

My mom smiled and said, “I see.”

“What do you see?” I asked cautiously.

“Friendship is a good place to start,” she replied.

“Start what?” I decided it was best if my mom didn’t answer that question. “Never mind. I know you think I’m going to date Austin, and we’ll fall in love and give you grandchildren.”

“After you travel the world with his band,” she added. Yep, she had this all planned out.

“It’s not going to happen,” I told her.

“Did something else happen with Austin?” my mom asked hesitantly.

“At the club?” I asked.

She shook her head. “When you were sixteen. You went from worshipping the ground he walked on to not wanting to hear his name.”

“I never worshipped the ground he walked on,” I argued. “As for me not wanting to talk about him, Dad quit working for his family, so I wasn’t going to see him again.”

My mom shook her head, looking down at her cup of coffee before responding. “Back then, I was caught up in everything going on in my own life. I wasn’t there for you the way I should have been.” Her eyes met mine, and she reached out to give my hand a squeeze. “What happened with Austin?”

“I don’t want to talk about what happened,” I said on a sigh. “It’s in the past. I was a kid, so none of it matters now.”

My mom hesitated. She clearly didn’t like my answer, but she finally nodded. “If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you back then. That wasn’t my finest moment as a mother or a wife.”

“It’s okay, Mom.” Other than that short time in my teen years, my mom had always put my needs ahead of her own. “I promise I’ll tell you if I need to talk.”

She nodded. “Tell me all about opening night at your club.”

I could have kissed my mom for giving me a change of subject.