Celia is fiddling nervously with her ring. Every few minutes, she turns on her phone, sets the camera to reverse, and examines her reflection on the screen.

I put a hand on her knee. “Relax,” I tell her. We’re in the back of a cab, on our way to a restaurant downtown where we’re meeting my mother for dinner. She had insisted on some time alone with us so we could catch up and so she could get to know Celia. I was a bit nervous myself, but I’d had no choice but to oblige. When your mother wants to have dinner with you, you say yes.

“It’s going to be fine,” I promise Celia now. “You’re going to do great.”

“This is your mother, Jace.” She looks at me pointedly.

“And she’s going to love you. She already told me how much she likes you, just after talking to you on the phone the other day.”

Celia laughs, probably at the memory. She shakes her head. “This is different though. This is meeting the parents.”

I shake my head, laughing too. “Yeah, but it’s not really. Worst case scenario, she isn’t your biggest fan. Then she’ll just be relieved when we break up. Actually, maybe that’s even better. Could you try being rude at dinner?”

Celia flashes me a rueful grin, but her eyes look strangely … sad. She shakes her head. “I’m not being rude to your mother. Believe it or not, I actually want her to like me.”

“I know you do,” I say, nuzzling into her neck. “That’s because you’re a good girl from Connecticut. Which is exactly why she’s going to love you.”

“Right,” Celia says, though she looks unconvinced.

I’m not quite sure what’s really going on with her right now. I know she was upset earlier, after she’d told me about Martin — I still couldn’t believe what that bastard had done to her. I’d always known the guy was a prissy asshole but I wish I’d realized just how much of an asshole. I would have decked him back when I had the chance.

And I still didn’t quite understand why Celia was so afraid to tell me about why they’d broken up. It wasn’t like it made her any less perfect in my eyes. And anyway, his loss was my gain.

Temporary gain, I remind myself.

I think back to the way we’d spent the rest of the afternoon in the hotel — first the shower, then back to the bed, then the wingback chair over by the window. Then one more time on the bed for good measure. I thought I’d helped her put all the worry out of her mind, but now she looks stressed and anxious again.

And even though it’s really fucking cute the way her forehead furrows and her lips purse, I hate seeing her stressed out.

I squeeze her knee again and let my hand ride slowly up her thigh. She’s wearing a simple green dress that looks killer with those green eyes of hers, but I especially love the way it’s short enough that it rides up in the back seat of the cab, showing off the creamy white skin of her thighs. I push the dress a little higher and use my hand to spread her legs a little wider.

Celia bites her lip but then she reaches down and wraps her hand around mine so that we’re holding hands instead. She pushes her dress back into place. Wow, she must really be nervous.

I give her hand a squeeze and then we’re pulling up in front of the restaurant where we’d arranged to meet Mom.

I pay the driver and help Celia out of the cab. I grab her around the waist and pull her close to me, forcing her to meet my gaze.

“You’re going to be amazing,” I assure her. “Or do you need another lesson in how amazing you are? Because I would be more than happy to provide one.” That earns me a small grin.

“I’m ready,” she says. “I just don’t want to screw this up.”

“You won’t.” I lean in and kiss her on the nose. “Come on.”

We go into the restaurant and find Mom already seated at a table near the window. I drag Celia over and Mom stands up as soon as she sees us, her face lighting up in a huge happy smile.

She wraps me in a long hug. She holds on tight but I can feel how thin her arms are now. She’s aged a lot since the last time I saw her. Her blonde hair is still perfectly styled, and the coral suit dress she’s wearing looks pristine, but there are lines around her eyes that weren’t there before, and her mouth seems to drag down in the corners

She pulls away but keeps her hands on my biceps.

“Let me look at you,” she says, inspecting me up and down. After she’s apparently satisfied, she nods and smiles. “You look good, honey. It’s so good to see you.”

“You too, Mom.” I try to keep the emotion out of my voice, but I’m hit with a crushing wave of guilt over how long I’ve been away. “Mom, I’d like you to meet someone very special. This is Celia. My fiancee.”

“Oh, Celia!” Mom claps her hands together and then wraps Celia in a hug as fierce as the one she gave me. Celia returns the hug and something strange catches in my chest at the sight of them embracing. For the hundredth time, I have to remind myself that this isn’t real, that Celia and I are only pretending.

“It’s so nice to meet you, finally,” Mom is saying.

“You too,” Celia says warmly. “Jace speaks very highly of you. I want you to know that you raised a wonderful man.”

Mom’s cheeks flush with pleasure at Celia’s words and I want to high-five my fake fiancee. She’s already hitting it out of the park.

Of course, maybe I was right about what I’d said in the cab — the less Mom likes her, the easier this will all be when I have to pull the plug. But I’m not going to worry about that now.

I hold Mom’s chair out for her so she can sit back down, and then do the same for Celia before taking my own seat beside her.

“I’m so glad we’re getting this chance to spend some time getting to know each other,” Mom says to Celia as I pour us glasses of red wine from the bottle that’s already on the table. Always the bartender, I think to myself.

“Me, too,” she says. “Though I hear Hannah and Trent are keeping you very busy with wedding duties.”

With that, they’re off on a pleasant conversation about the wedding. Every time Mom starts to change the topic, Celia steers it back into safe territory, and Mom is just as happy to keep gushing about the upcoming nuptials. After all, this is the first time one of her children is tying the knot.

By the time the food arrives, I’m actually starting to relax and I can tell Celia is too. Her smile comes more easily and she seems to genuinely be enjoying the conversation.

“Oh, listen to me,” Mom says with a laugh, after a long and involved story about why they decided not to go with a live harpist during the wedding ceremony. “I’m going on and on. Celia, you must tell me more about yourself.”

“Oh, there’s not much to tell, really,” Celia demurs. “And I just love hearing about the wedding.”

“Well, if you like weddings so much, you must be just thrilled to be planning your own. Have you made any decisions yet?”

“Uh, not really,” Celia says, glancing at me.

“It’s going to be a pretty small and casual affair,” I say.

Mom’s forehead wrinkles, and she sets down her fork. “Jace, you won’t elope, will you? Promise me you won’t elope.”

“I promise, we’re not eloping, Mom.”

She nods, but her face doesn’t relax. “Good. Because I feel like I’ve already missed so much of your life — I won’t miss this too.”

“You won’t, Mom,” I try to assure her again, but then to my horror, she picks up a napkin and dabs at her eyes with it.

“Jace, it’s been too long, honey. We miss you. Why don’t you ever come back to visit? What did I do wrong?”

Her voice is so plaintive that my heart twists. I feel like I have dry stones in my throat. Celia is looking at me with wide eyes. I can tell she has no idea what to do. To be honest, I don’t either.

I reach across the table and take Mom’s hand.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Mom.” Jesus. I’ve done a lot to earn my reputation as a bad boy, but making my own mother cry is a rock bottom low for me. Guilt sits like a bowling ball in my stomach.

“Then why?” she asks. “Why do you have to be so far away? You never visit, you never seem to want to connect with us. You and your brothers barely speak. I had to beg Trent to call you to ask if you were even coming to the wedding. It shouldn’t be that way, Jace. Our family shouldn’t be that way.”

I squeeze her hand. “Mom, it’s nothing you did. You know that, right? You were the best Mom we could have asked for. I left because of … because of what happened with Trent and Luke. After they fired me.”

“But that was so long ago,” she says.

I nod. “I know.”

“I barely even remember what it was about.”

“Me either,” I lie. I glance over at Celia. She’s watching us and there’s compassion on her face, but curiosity too. I know she’s interested in what drove Trent and Luke and I apart. I’ve never really talked to her about it, and I don’t intend to. I don’t exactly come across in a great light in that story.

“Things will be different from here on,” I tell my mother, promising both her and myself. “I’ll come visit more. Christmas — how about that? It’s been ages since we’ve had Christmas together with everyone.”

Mom nods, dabbing at her eyes with the napkin again. “That would be nice. I hope you mean it, Jace.”

“I do.”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Celia chimes in. “We’ll definitely come out for Christmas.”

I can see the surprise in her face as soon as the words are out of her mouth. She looks over at me, but I smile and she gives me an almost imperceptible little shrug.

“Thank you, Celia,” Mom is saying. She smiles. “I think you’re a good influence on Jace. I’m glad he found you.”

“Me, too,” she says, reaching over and taking my hand.

For half a red hot second, it feels real. All of it. Her touch, her affection, the promise that we would come back here to spend the holidays with my family.

I take a long swallow from the glass of wine in front of me. It isn’t real, I remind myself, for what feels like the hundredth time this week.

It isn’t real, no matter how perfectly her hand seems to fit inside mine.