"I'm serious," Rose started again. "I set you up a date tonight, and I think you should go."
With a sigh, I finished the tea she'd given me and held out my glass, silently asking for her to refill it.
What I didn't do was give her an answer. I honestly didn't know what to say or if I should just go along with it to make her happy.
"She picked a hot one," Emma volunteered. "I think you're gonna like him." The smile on her face and the devilish gleam in her eyes made me want to kick Emma in the shins. Only we weren't kids anymore, and since I was almost thirty, it probably wasn't a good idea for me to physically assault her. Even if I really wanted to.
Curiosity killed the cat, as they say, and I had to know. "How did you find me a date? Who is it? Someone from work?"
Rose chortled. "Not even close. You couldn't handle any of those raunchy assholes."
She was right, though. I saw enough of them at Lucy's when I was covering a shift for one of my waitresses. Rose worked with the outlaws. Technically they weren't outlaws, but they formed a special task force for Birch County, made up of the problem children from every department.
When the state police wanted to get one of their troopers off their hands, but still keep them in the department, they sent them to Birch County Intelligence. When the Birch Sheriff's Department, Birch Police Department, and even Birch Fire Department wanted to get a problem child off their plate, they sent them to BCI too. The ragtag team of investigators didn't play by anyone's rules, not really. But Rose kept every single one of them in check like they were her children, and that's how it would always be.
"Who, then?" I sat in one of the rocking chairs on my porch, pushing Emma out of the way with my hip to get there.
"You don't know him," Emma squealed like a little girl. "That's the best part. He's one of my professors up at the University of Maine. Mom met him when we were doing the walk-through before I enrolled, and then yesterday we were at lunch and he walked by. She's a badass."
Embarrassed didn't even approach the level of mortification that I felt, and I sat there with a veil of red starting to rise on my face. It had to be someone from out of town because no one who lived in Birch would even consider dating me a possibility. Still. Even after six years. Almost no one had forgiven me for that night.
"So," I said very carefully. "This guy thinks that I'm desperate for a date."
Rose snorted. "Not even close. I told him that my daughter needed a date and that she'd probably fight tooth and nail to not even show up. But he said he hadn't been sexually harassed by a student's mom before, so he was intrigued."
"I showed him your picture," Emma said while sounding very proud of herself. "You know the one from when you were sick … your hair was sticking up in every direction, and you were wearing your favorite sweats, and your shirt was hanging off your shoulder."
Her words built on the embarrassment in a way I could never have predicted in my entire life. I leaned forward and let my face fall into my open hands, trying to get rid of the mental picture I had of the photo she was talking about. "Why would you do that?" My words came out muffled, and I tried not to start crying from the shock of everything.
"Because," Emma whispered loudly, dropping her voice for no reason. "It's perfect, if he sees you at your worst and still wants to go on a date with you. You know that when you try to cancel on him, because Nox has the flu and throws up for the fifth time, he'd be fine to come over to the house and watch a movie instead of just letting you do everything alone."
Emma's logic, though flawed, did make a twisted sort of sense.
"Plus," Rose added on. "I also showed him a picture of you looking normal."
The excitement on their faces, and the way they both seemed to jump from foot to foot when I finally looked up from my hands, made it impossible to turn them down. Especially since they'd already started in on how they were excited to have Nox for a sleepover.
Worst case scenario for my night was a date that I had to leave halfway through and a full night alone in my bed with my favorite reruns playing.
"Fine." I agreed to their weird interference in my life.
"Fantastic." Rose shimmied a little bit where she stood. "I was afraid I was going to have to bust out all the reasons why you need to get laid. You’re going to meet him at Flare in Bangor tonight at seven.”
Groaning, I hung my head again. "Rose. I was married to your son. You shouldn't say that shit to me." Not to mention, I only had about three hours until I had to be in Bangor, and it would take me at least forty-five minutes to get there. Only two hours to turn this pumpkin into something respectable? I didn’t even think an entire day would be enough time.
Rose scoffed, dragging me out of the melancholy place my thoughts had gone, only to tear my heart out with her words. "You married him for Nox, Parker. And I let you live in that memory, burying yourself into a relationship that you didn't want, even after he died, because that's how you processed everything. But you're my child too, and I'm tired of watching you throw your life down the drain for the memory of my son."
Emma chose that moment to walk away. I barely stopped myself from calling after her to not leave me alone with her mother. After all, Rose was poking every single emotional wound I had, with an extremely sharp stick.
"That's not fair, Rose." She was right, though, and I knew it. I’d already come to that conclusion myself, but just like every other time in my life that something happens, life comes up.
“Life isn’t fair, Parker.” Rose patted me on the head and then sighed deeply while she stared out at Nox. “Otherwise, Danny would be alive. But you’ve given us a gift that we never thought we’d have. We got Nox. And you too. You never once let anyone disparage my son’s memory. For that? I’d do practically anything for you. Even push you out of your comfort zone and into a blind date.”
“It’s going to go terribly, you know that, right?” I leaned my head on her shoulder, taking the comfort that Rose always offered.
Rose laughed, and I felt it travel from her body into mine, releasing tension that I hadn’t even known I was carrying. “Oh, it’s going to be the worst date ever. But it’ll be done, and you’ll know that you can survive it. And then, Parker, you can start to live again.”
My eyes stung, with the bright light of the sun shining down on us and the powerful emotions that Rose was sharing. I absently wiped at the tears that had appeared out of nowhere.
“I forgot about you, Parker.” Rose went on and wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “In all the grief and the worry and the way I couldn’t breathe at night while Linc was still overseas and in the military, I forgot that you weren’t living. You weren’t moving on, and I didn’t notice it. There’s no excuse for that, Parker. I want you to know that. It wasn’t until the Townsends lost Cassie, and the boys came home, that I got to see how selfish I was. How much I had hurt you, just by forgetting. No more, though.” She sniffled, and then let me go when Nox interrupted our conversation.
“Gigi!” He jumped up on the porch railing next to us, climbing it like a monkey. “You and Mommy are silly. Come play with me. Before the rain comes.”