“I don’t have a gift,” she says, crossing her arms in the passenger seat. As if that will be the thing that finally tips the scales for me. Oh, in that case, get out.

  “I have more than enough.” I nod toward the pile of presents in the back seat. Lucy helped me order a few things online, and I think she got click-happy at one point when I excused myself to use the restroom. I don’t remember buying my mom and Lucy matching Louis Vuitton bags, but Lucy assures me that I did. “And next year, you’ll be getting us—I mean her, the matching wallet.”

  Scarlett’s brows shoot up when she looks back at the gifts, but she doesn’t say anything. I pull away from her apartment building and join the traffic.

  Scarlett folds her hands neatly in her lap and looks out the window, seemingly lost in space until she feels the need to inform me, “Just so you know, people are gossiping about us in the office.”

  I’m not surprised. I expected there to be speculation the moment Scarlett and I started working out together in the Elwood Hoyt gym. I didn’t make a point of staying away from her at the Christmas party either, and we’ve eaten lunch together a time or two down in the food court. Our friendship was going to invite gossip no matter what.

  “So you shouldn’t talk to me or look at me or bother me anymore,” she continues, keeping her gaze out the window. “Not if you want your precious promotion.”

  My fingers tighten on the steering wheel. I want to say so much. A novel’s worth, really. Instead, I offer a simple “Noted.”

  “To practice, I think we should start now.”

  I smile.

  God. Even now, I like her so much.

  I flip my blinker on and change lanes, trying a normal conversation on for size. “My mom is turning 62, but she’s going to lie and tell you she’s turning 52.”

  I pause for questions but don’t get any.

  “My sister will be there too. My brother-in-law is on call and will be late if he can make it at all. He’s an emergency medicine doctor and his schedule can sometimes be erratic.”

  She hums.

  “You’ll also meet my nieces and nephews, all seventy-five of them.”

  This catches her attention. She whips around to face me.

  “Kidding. There are only three of them, but sometimes the noise level makes it feel like there’s a whole lot more, and another one is on the way. My nephew just started potty training last week, so sorry in advance if he pees on you. My oldest niece will ask you if you have any makeup she can use. Do not let her. She’ll never leave you alone after that. I’m warning you.”

  Scarlett crosses her arms and turns her attention back on the road.

  I don’t push my luck. For the rest of the drive, I crank the radio and stay quiet in an effort to keep this intensely fraught peace intact. It feels like at any moment, we’ll implode.

  My mom lives in a one-story house in a suburb near Chicago with tree-lined streets and bikes littering front yards. I come here on Halloween and pass out candy with her. Last year, we had so many trick-or-treaters we ran out of candy, and my mom started giving out the cash I had in my wallet. I’ve considered what it would be like to move out here one day. The commute into the office wouldn’t be too bad.

  “Oh, I like that house,” Scarlett says, more to herself than to me. It’s a two-story colonial with red brick and neat hedgerows rimming overflowing garden beds. I’ve always liked that house too, but I don’t dare agree with her because I know it’ll only piss her off.

  A minute later, I park in front of my mom’s house, and then I open the back door. I’m prepared to Tetris the gifts in my arms in lieu of making two trips, but Scarlett starts loading her arms up too.

  “Thanks.”

  She ignores me and closes the door. I lead us up the front walkway knowing without a shadow of a doubt that my mom has already clocked our arrival. With her motherly intuition, she probably knew the moment we exited the highway. The front door is flung open before we reach it and—oh god, her eyes are welled up with tears.

  “Hudson! Who do we have here?!”

  She ignores me and goes straight for Scarlett, pressing her hands to either side of Scarlett’s cheeks and looking her over. Personal space does not exist for my mother. I wince and expect Scarlett to wrench away, but she laughs and smiles.

  Scarlett and my mother are about the same size, though my mom is all blonde—“It hides the grays!”—and dressed in bright pink.

  “Hi, Mrs. Rhodes.”

  My mom guffaws with a laugh and a teasing smile. “Mrs. Rhodes?! What am I, 80? You can call me Renee.”

  “Mom, this is Scarlett, and you can let go of her now.”

  “Oh hush, you.” My mom loops her arm around Scarlett and scoops her inside. I’m left, forgotten, on the front porch.

  “Happy birthday, Mom!” I add with dry sarcasm.

  Again, no one pays me any attention. I could leave them and go get a Starbucks if I wanted. Wouldn’t matter.

  “Scarlett,” my mom says with an admiring tone. “That is such a gorgeous name.”

  “Thank you, it’s a family name. Scarlett was my grandmother on my mother’s side.”

  My mom lays a hand over her heart like she’s completely enchanted by this information.

  “You named me after your dad,” I point out.

  Crickets.

  In the foyer, my mom takes the presents out of Scarlett’s arms and dumps them in mine. “Are you hungry, Scarlett? Here, come in the kitchen and I’ll make you whatever you want.”

  Scarlett laughs as she follows after her. “It’s your birthday—I should be making you something to eat!”

  “No, no, come on.”

  She bands her arm around Scarlett’s shoulders and starts to lead her down the hall, but Scarlett stops abruptly in front of the landscape painting that has hung there in the same spot since I was a child. If I lifted the frame, I’m sure the paint behind it would be three shades lighter than the surrounding wall. It was the first piece my mom ever did, a lot moodier than the ones she paints now.

  Painting has always been her hobby of choice. And though she’s never listened to my sister and me when we tell her how talented she is, how much people love her work, she did relent and let me commission a dozen pieces for my corner of the Elwood Hoyt offices.

  “Oh, these are just like the ones Hudson has at work,” Scarlett notes. “I love them.”

  My mom looks taken aback for a moment. “Oh.” Then she laughs. “They’re nothing. Little abstracts.”

  “Did you…” Scarlett turns to her with nothing short of awe. “Are these yours?”

  A shake of her head, a bashful little laugh. My mom is so used to slithering her way out of a compliment about her art, but Scarlett won’t let her.

  “I love them, truly.”

  She nods, taking it in. “Well thank you. I do like this one in particular.”

  “You’ll have to show me any others you have around the house,” Scarlett insists before continuing on into the kitchen.

  Before she follows, my mom looks at me over her shoulder and gives me an emphatic thumbs-up when Scarlett isn’t looking.

  For the record, I do try to go into the kitchen to join in their conversation, but my mom makes it clear she wants one-on-one time with Scarlett. “Hudson, can you go see why that toilet in the hall upstairs won’t flush?”

  Sure.

  Then, “Also, there’re some flowers outside that need water, I bet.”

  Surprised she didn’t say, And you might as well mow the grass while you’re out there.

  My sister, Corinne, arrives thirty minutes late with a cacophony of screaming children and a slew of apologies. “It took us forever to get on the road and then my gas light came on, and then Wren had a blowout that almost got all over her car seat.” She suddenly grips her baby bump. “Holy shhhh—if I don’t make it to a bathroom in the next five seconds, I’m going to pee all over Mom’s floor.”

  I point up. “Upstairs hall bathroom is working again.”

  “Oh thank god.”

  My nephew, Jack, already dashed past me and beat her to the downstairs one.

  Then, from the kitchen, I hear my niece Annabelle ask Scarlett, “Who are you?” Then, “Do you have any makeup?”

  Scarlett should have listened to me when I warned her about this. I hop up to save her, but it’s too late. She opened Pandora’s box the second she agreed to check her purse. She’s lucky she only had a tube of lip gloss and some powder because they both belong to Annabelle now.

  My sister is absolutely mortified when she makes it down from the restroom. My family is probably under strict orders to impress Scarlett by any means necessary. I can imagine my mom running everyone through drills: “He’s finally brought a woman home! Places! Places, everyone!”

  Instead of being the perfect family with perfect manners, we’re five minutes in and Annabelle’s already rooting around in Scarlett’s bag.

  Corinne tries apologizing, but Scarlett laughs it off. “Truly, had I known, I would have brought more.”

  Annabelle’s eyes light up. Her newly pink glossy lips split into a smile. “There’s more?!”

  Corinne sighs and tries to shoo her out of the kitchen. “Annabelle, go. Be a kid. Find a stick or something.”

  “Later, Mom.” My six-year-old niece refuses to leave the barstool next to Scarlett. She’s looking my date over with a shrewd eye. “What kind of eyeshadow palette did you use this morning?”

  She’s inspecting Scarlett’s makeup carefully, getting right up close to her face. Too close. Kids have no concept of personal space.

  Scarlett has to think for a second. “Oh. It’s just one I picked up at Sephora. I can’t even remember the brand. You like it?”

  Annabelle scrunches her nose and tips her hand back and forth like, Ehh. “I think you should go with more of a matte finish for everyday.”

  Scarlett, immediately trusting the judgment of a first grader, pulls out her phone. “Okay. Which one should I buy?”

  I have no frame of reference for whether this is all normal or not, the way Scarlett just assimilates into our family as if she’s always been a part of our gatherings. She helps my mom with lunch, insisting she’d rather be put to work than waited on hand and foot. My mom puts her on drink duty and Scarlett asks if there are any oranges or lemons. My mom has both, and Scarlett whips up a citrus-infused ice tea that blows my mom’s socks off.

  We sit around the table at lunch, and Scarlett voluntarily puts herself within firing range of my youngest niece, Wren. At one point, Wren reaches out and gets a good chunk of Scarlett’s hair in her hands, really making sure to rub her sticky chicken salad fingers onto every strand.

  My mom almost has an aneurysm. “Scarlett! Oh no, I’m so sorry. Here, come over to the sink and let me help you rinse that out.”

  Scarlett smiles and rolls with the punches, gently untangling her hair from Wren’s grip and replacing it with her pinky finger instead. Wren is just as satisfied, kicking her feet and smiling a big gummy smile that Scarlett returns.

  “I grew up with three older brothers,” she explains to everyone. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had chicken salad in my hair at the dinner table.”

  “Three older brothers?!” Corinne sounds horrified by the concept. “Hudson was bad enough on his own.”

  Naturally, this turns the conversation toward our childhood. Scarlett is desperate for stories of my adolescence (likely for blackmail purposes), and my sister delivers.

  “Oh he used to love playing with Barbies. Yeah, he’d get really into it—”

  “As most anyone would!” my mom cuts in, defending my honor and trying to ensure that nothing my sister says will change Scarlett’s good opinion of me. Little does she know there’s no good opinion left. Corinne can talk away.

  “He went through a phase where his favorite color was purple. He was obsessed. He’d wear this purple shirt of mine that said ‘Girl Power!’ across the front until he had his first growth spurt and…” She has to pause here to laugh. “He couldn’t even fit his little head through the hole. Oh my god, do you remember that day? You cried and made Mom take you shopping to find another purple shirt.”

  “No, no, I don’t remember that,” my mom chides, shooting Corinne harsh glares and miming her pointer finger slashing across her throat.

  Scarlett just laughs, looking over at me, likely trying to reconcile the man she knows now with the child who cried over a purple t-shirt. I shrug and go back to eating.

  “He was such a good little boy,” my mother adds, derailing the fun conversation with a list of qualities she thinks will win Scarlett over. “Very respectful and smart. So smart! Tell her, Hudson. Tell her how you were always on the honor roll in school.”

  Corinne cracks up. “Mom! She knows Hudson is smart. They work together.”

  “Oh fine. Can’t a mom brag on her son a little bit?”

  I stand up and slap my hands down on the table, drawing the attention of my nieces and nephew. “Who wants cake?”

  I’m surprised the responding ear-splitting squeals don’t shatter the windows.

  While my mom is opening her presents, Scarlett sneaks around the kitchen, tidying up, quietly gathering plates so my mom doesn’t have such a mess to contend with once we’re all gone. By the end of the party, everyone’s about ready to trade me in for her. None of the kids understand exactly why she isn’t just a part of the family from now on. While I’m outside on the trampoline with the kids, they hound me with questions.

  “Are you like married now?” Annabelle asks with a deeply serious expression.

  “Nah, kiddo.”

  “But you’re going to get married?”

  I snort. “Not even close.”

  Jack asks, “Do you love her?” but because he’s three it comes out sounding like, “Do you luff hewr?”

  “Luff hewr! Luff hewr! Luff hewr!” Jack repeats, going on and on with it so that I have no choice but to double-bounce him and send him careening into the air in a fit of giggles.

  “Do that to me! To me!” Annabelle demands.

  By 4:00 p.m., the kids are exhausted, the cake’s been eaten in multiple waves, and everyone’s on the downward slope of their sugar high. When I nudge Scarlett and let her know it’s time for us to hit the road, everyone demands a hug from her. Annabelle wants two, but I think the second time around she was using the embrace as a ploy to whisper in Scarlett’s ear what kind of makeup she wants Scarlett to buy her for her birthday in June.

  “Thank you for having me in your home,” Scarlett tells my mom.

  My mom rushes forward and squeezes her tightly. “It was so so nice to meet you. Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

  Scarlett steps back and nods.

  Outside, everyone gathers on the front stoop to watch us head down the path to the car.

  “Bye, Scarlett!” Annabelle shouts.

  “Luff hewr!” Jack adds, now programmed to repeat the phrase because it gets a laugh from Annabelle every time.

  The tableau is so wholesome it looks like the end of a made-for-TV movie. It’s not until we’re in my car, safely tucked behind closed doors, and halfway down the block that Scarlett whacks me on the arm.

  “OUCH!”

  “That is for duping your mom, you a-hole. That woman is a saint, and she deserves better than that!”

  I rub my bicep. “Oh please. She’s doing just fine, I assure you. I paid off the last of her mortgage, and that fancy car in the driveway? Yeah, bought her that too.”

  “She doesn’t want your crap, Hudson! She wants you, happy and in love, and we made her think you were!” She drops her head in her hands like she’s in agony. “Oh my god, turn the car around. I’m going to go back and apologize.”

  “No can do.”

  I reach over to hold her in her seat just in case she gets any ideas.

  She looks at me with a wide-eyed expression. “What are you going to tell her when she asks about me?! Because she will ask about me. She and I really connected!”

  “Relax.” I shrug, trying to act calm about all this. “In a month or two, I’ll break the news to her that we broke up.”

  She drops her head in her hands again. “God, that’s going to devastate her.”

  “She’ll recover.”

  She cocks her head to glower at me. “The story stands. I broke up with you. That’s the way it goes. Because you were an arrogant jerk and didn’t deserve my love—that’s what you’re going to tell her.”

  “Should I be writing this down?”

  My sarcasm isn’t appreciated. Scarlett wants to kill me more than ever, but she doesn’t understand how intense my mom has become about my love life recently, and this way, at least, I can buy myself a month or two. If I’m lucky.

  “It’s really not a big deal, Scarlett.”

  “Maybe not to you…”

  She murmurs the words toward her window, and I realize I’m really the lowest of the low in her book. This mess has gotten too out of hand. I want to apologize to her again about Saturday, but I know it won’t go over well.

  If I could go back in time…

  No. That hypothetical game won’t work, and it doesn’t matter. Even if I rewound to before last Saturday, even if I never showed up at her apartment, never kissed her, never gave in to my desire—I’d still be in this mess, trying to navigate this complicated relationship.

  “I’ll text her when I get home and tell her we’re just friends,” I promise solemnly.

  Scarlett’s shoulders sag. “Thank you,” she says with a small voice.

  Very few people have the ability to burrow deep down inside me, but Scarlett is one of them. All I want to do is make her happy, and I’ve yet to figure out exactly how to do that.

  “For the record, Scarlett—”

  “Don’t.”

  I have to. I can’t sleep knowing she might have the wrong idea about our situation.

  “I was the only person in the wrong last weekend,” I trudge on resolutely. “I should have never put you in that position.”