“Is my dad coming, too?”

Malinda waved that off. “He was worried about that scene, catching any of the girls too early in the morning, if you know what I mean. My word, Sam.” She blinked several times at me, pressing a hand to her chest. “Your roommate is gorgeous.”

“Oh.” I laughed. “She used to be a model.”

“I had no idea. You talked about her, and Logan said she was gorgeous, but I didn’t realize how beautiful she was. That’s a relief.”

I started to pick at the bags of groceries. If my nose wasn’t deceiving me, I could smell some coffee somewhere. I asked, reaching for another bag that seemed heavier than the others, “Logan? Relief?”

“Well, yeah.” She plopped down on my bed. “I know you’ve had a hard time with girls being jealous of you. I was a little worried about how your roommate would handle your looks and your closeness to Mason and Logan. Not a lot of girls could handle that, but she seems like a very self-assured girl herself. That’s a relief for you.”

Aha! Coffee and a coffeemaker. Mama Malinda was my new favorite person.

I pulled the maker out of the bag and got right to work getting it set up.

“Samantha?”

“Huh?” I paused and looked over at her.

She fixed me with a look.

I slowly lowered the coffee machine to the desk as I asked, “What did I miss?”

She didn’t answer. She stared at me. Her brown hair was tamed under a red silk scarf. Gold thread weaved through it, somehow reflecting off her complexion. I stopped and really stared back at my new mother. Her love was right there. It was swimming on the surface with a few unshed tears in her eyes. Her lips were struggling not to smile too wide, and she pressed a hand to her cheek.

She huskily murmured, “Nothing. You’ve missed nothing. I’m just being an emotional mess over here.”

“Huh?”

“Go ahead.” She stood and waved at me. “I knew you’d find that first. I brought water for you two gals, too. You can use that to make the coffee.”

It wasn’t until later that I realized what happened. My new mom brought me stuff to college, and I’d dug right in, looking for the goodies, while she sat and got emotional.

I had been normal.

Right?

I asked Summer when her parents were coming, and she didn’t answer right away. She’d been quiet about her family since the first weekend. Both her mother and stepmother were there, helping her move into the room, but they barely talked to each other. Her father was, too. I hadn’t thought much about it. Who was I to be nosy about someone else’s family? Mine was crazy enough, but now, getting no response from my roommate, I started to wonder why.

I got the answer that night.

I’d just gotten back from dinner with David, Malinda, Logan, Mason, and Nate. Nate’s parents came with us. I hadn’t known they were in town, but they were tight-lipped. There were a lot of looks between Mason, Logan, Nate, and his parents. Malinda and David hadn’t been oblivious. They’d caught on to the undercurrents, whatever they were, but Malinda pretended they weren’t there. I’d caught her studying Nate’s mother a few times with a speculative look in her eyes. I couldn’t be sure what she saw, but I was glad that Malinda hadn’t pushed to know what was going on.

Nate’s parents gave me the chills. They reminded me of Helen—wealthy, pretentious, and just plain stuck-up snobs. However, they couldn’t snub their nose at Malinda. She had her own wealth, coming from her father, and she was connected. She ran in those hoity-toity circles that Mason and Logan’s parents had as well before the divorce and the implosion of my family on them.

At one point, Nate’s mother inquired about where Helen was, if she’d be attending parents’ weekend as well.

Logan snorted in laughter. “Are you kidding me? Pretty sure the formerly absent mother has returned back to her absent status.” He asked Mason, “What? She’s in Paris now?”

“Venice.”

Logan snorted again but in disgust. He let out a sigh. “I’ve lost my appetite now.”

For the only time that night, Nate’s mother lost her holier-than-thou air for a moment. She’d looked to be at a loss for words, but she’d folded her hands in her lap and kept her head down for twenty minutes after that.

Malinda pressed her lips together, still eyeing the other woman with hawk-like focus, but only reached for her wine. Nate’s father asked David how the Fallen Crest Academy football team was going to do for the rest of the season.

Things progressed a little more smoothly after that. Nate’s father and David conversed about football, asking Mason about his season so far, while Malinda informed Logan and Nate how Mark was doing at his college.

I remained quiet.

The whole dinner was unsettling. Nate’s parents never said or did anything wrong to me, but they reminded me too much of Helen’s disdain for me, which reminded me of Garrett and what my professor said. She knew my biological father, who I hadn’t heard from since leaving Boston last Christmas.

The time with him had been…okay. I was there. He was there. We’d shared a few dinners. I’d explored the coffee shop down the same block and the bookstore it was attached to while he’d worked at his office during the day. My nights had been spent on the phone with Mason and Logan. When Garrett dropped me off at the airport, the good-byes had been respectful. That was the best word to describe them. I wasn’t angry with him. I didn’t feel close to him, but he wasn’t really a stranger anymore.