Go on and just say it, I wanted to bite out. Not anyone is noble enough to sacrifice so much for a sick girl.

“I reckon he’s mighty busy. Hope you aren’t giving him a hard time for it, Rosie. I’m just glad he can make it at all.” Mama patted my cheek a little too hard, her heavy chest rising and falling to the rhythm of her breaths. Mama was a big woman, with big brown hair, big blue eyes, and big everything else. Ever since I could remember, she had a thin layer of sweat coating her smooth skin. I used to love feeling it stick to my flesh as I hugged her.

“Well…” I cleared my throat. I should get it over with. Peel it off like a Band-Aid. “Actually…”

“Can’t wait to meet the boy. I even bought a new dress. First impressions are everything. I have a feeling about this one, Rosie.” She dangled her finger in my face. “You’ve been living together for a while now, and he knows your situation with…”

I knew exactly with what. Ever since I told my family about that situation a year ago, shortly before Millie had left, they started treating me like an old arthritic dog with bladder issues.

Darren was supposed to arrive on the same weekend of the wedding. He thought that, by then, we could also break it to my family that we were next in line.

He thought wrong.

Mama buying herself a new dress for their meeting meant she was no less than ecstatic. Her usual attire didn’t exactly give Carrie Bradshaw a run for her money. I let her soak in faux bliss, saving the bombshell for when I wasn’t sleep-deprived and slightly jet-lagged.

Living in New York meant that I called the shots and cherry-picked the information I shared with my family. My parents and sister had no way of knowing I broke up with my boyfriend. No one could tell them.

Other than Dean Cole.

I made a mental note to fire Dean a text about keeping his pipe shut.

“So, Rosie, how’s work?” Mama asked through the background noise of a lively kitchen, pulling the casserole out of the oven with her flowery mitts. The scent of beef, onion, and fat egg noodles floated throughout the room, crawling into my nose and making my stomach growl. Millie licked her lips, gazing at the dish like it was Jamie Dornan. She didn’t normally like casseroles, but maybe she had realized how fundamentally wrong she was, because Mama’s casseroles were the eighth wonder of the world. I was just about to answer Mama’s question when she cut me off. Again.

“My sweet girl, are you hungry? Have a seat. I’ll give you a piece right now.” She patted my older sister’s back. I clamped my mouth shut, waiting to see if she’d prompt me to answer her previous question. If she really gave a damn about my job.

Mama ran from corner to corner, fixing Millie a plate while I stood there, arms folded, watching the scene. Charlene LeBlanc was an old-school Southern belle, down to her very core, and catering to people—especially her children—ran in her blood, thick and vital like oxygen. But there was something else there. The urgency in which she fed Millie, like my sister was incapable, or alternatively, had lost all her teeth.

“Rosie? Would you like some, too?” She glanced behind her shoulder as she opened the fridge, taking out a pitcher of her signature homemade iced tea. Peach pieces floated lazily on top, and drool pooled in my mouth.

I wanted both, but to my surprise, heard myself saying, “No, thank you.”

Mama turned around and brushed Millie’s lavender hair away from her forehead. “Is the casserole good for you? I know that it’s your favorite.”

Millie nodded, taking another bite, and my insides just about detonated.

“Actually,” I opened the fridge, making myself at home—not that Mama had made me feel particularly welcome—“Millie’s favorite food is your pulled pork sandwiches. Noodle and beef casserole is my favorite.” I plucked a beer bottle from one of the doors—of course, the fridge was a double-door and about as spacious as our previous Sunnyside apartment. Twisting the bottle cap, I took a swig. It was still early to be drinking, but I guess it was five o’clock somewhere in the universe. Wherever it was, that was where I wanted to be.

My sister and Mama stared at me through a curtain of sheer surprise, Millie’s mouth still stuffed with food. I wished she’d wash it down with the iced tea I loved so much—Millie never liked iced tea, she was more into Coke—so I wouldn’t have to see the confusion swimming in her eyes.

“I’m sorry.” I put the bottle to my lips and waved a dismissive hand. “Long, bumpy flight with Dean Cole as a companion. I think I’m going to take my sour butt upstairs, if you don’t mind.”

Millie got to her feet. “I’ll show you to your room,” she volunteered. “It’s really pretty. I even bought and hung up all your favorite bands’ posters. Let me get your suitcase,” she added, and guilt immediately slammed into my gut for orchestrating that little scene to piss Mama off.

“You will do no such thing.” Mama’s voice was steel, and it cut through my nerves, leaving a burn. “I’ll get the suitcase. Meet you girls upstairs.”

I followed Millie up the stairs, head hanging in shame. The silence was so loud, it bounced off the walls. They were all getting along fine before I got there.

Knowing that I had the tendency to make things stressful—with my illness, my attitude, and my general existence—I vowed to lower my head and get out of their way for the remainder of my stay. Truth be told, it was one of the reasons I didn’t want to come here earlier.

Wanting to make conversation, I asked my older sister, “So what’s up with Mama acting like you’re a six-year-old and force-feeding you all of a sudden?”

“Nothing is up,” Millie chirped, gesturing with her hands to random pictures hanging on the walls and statues in the corners of the airy hallways. “You know Mama. She’s a feeder, a nester, and a worrier.”

“True, but she never had a problem with you doing my heavy lifting,” I pressed. Millie’s laughter was foreign on her lips.

“She’s been acting like I’m made out of cotton ever since I got engaged. She wants everything to be perfect. Brides don’t look too good with a giant gash on their heads or an arm in a cast.”

I dropped the subject, mainly because I was too tired to dig deeper into it, and partly because I had enough to worry about. I needed to make last-minute changes to her bachelorette party, and I still had to break the Darren news over dinner.

“I’m really happy that you’re here.” She rubbed my arm, we were both small women, but I was tiny. It felt fitting that I was pocket-size, especially as I felt that way whenever Mama was around. “I know you’re busy. You’ve got your life in New York, and I want you to know that I appreciate you coming here. So, so much, Rosie-bug.”

We talked some more before she retreated back to the kitchen. The minute I was alone, I flung my body onto the queen-sized mattress with dozens of fluffy pillows, fished my phone out of the back pocket of my bleached denim skirt, and wrote Dean a message. The first text message I’d ever sent him.

Rosie

Parents and sister don’t know I broke up with Darren. Please don’t say a word. Telling them tonight.

He replied within seconds.

Dean

Shit. Need to cancel that press release I scheduled. That bad over there?

It felt good to be asked a question, knowing he was actually waiting for an answer.

Rosie

The usual LeBlanc shenanigans. You?

Dean

Wolfing down a sandwich while listening to Mom’s town gossip about the new lawn regulations. Living the dream. Call if you need saving.

Rosie

You’re not my superman.

Dean

I’m whatever you need me to be.

Rosie

That was so cheesy, you actually gave me the munchies.

Dean

Funny you should mention munchies, I’m just thinking about how a certain body part of yours would be so much more delicious than my sandwich.

I snorted out an unattractive laugh as my head hit the pillow, then closed my eyes. Sleep came, and so did I, numerous times. In my dreams. My co-star? Dean ‘Ruckus’ Cole.

Dammit.

I WAS A PAMPERED LITTLE shit.

I knew that, acknowledged that, had no fucking problem with that.

The minute I arrived back home, Mom and Dad jumped on me like I was God himself. And to them, I was. I grew up believing the sun was shining directly from my asshole and that I was made of pure gold and chain-orgasms. That was what my helicopter parents drilled into my head, and that was what I eventually grew up to be. They didn’t treat my younger sisters—Payton and Keeley—any differently, and they turned out to be just as successful as I did. Keeley was studying medicine in Maryland, and Payton was a TA at Berkeley University while she worked on her dissertation in something both impressive and forgettable.

What can I say? The Cole parents had good-looking, overachieving kids.

Aside from the fact I depended on alcohol and weed to forget that Nina existed, I was pretty much perfect.

The perfect CEO.

The perfect businessman.

The perfect son.

The perfect lover.

I could probably go on, but what would be the point in that? I was also proficient with great time-management skills.

“Your sandwich, honey, with that special mustard you like from the farmers’ market.” My mom, Helen, pressed her lips to my forehead before she took a seat beside me at the kitchen table. My dad, Eli, sat across from me, a proud smirk on his lips.

We talked work, politics, and local gossip for a while, before Mom looked down and started playing with her pearl necklace over her lemon-hued cardigan.

“Sweetheart, I need to tell you something, and I don’t want you to be mad.”

Naturally, I was already irritated.

I looked up from my sandwich, chewing, as her movements grew more nervous and her throat bobbed.

“Recently…we’ve been in touch with Nina.” Mom smoothed the fabric of her cardigan nervously. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Nina had called Mom, but somehow, I was. Dad took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.