“I’m sorry,” he said, the words fragile and shaky and not enough.

“I know you are.” She brushed his hair back from his forehead in slow strokes. “Sometimes you’re a disaster. But you’re mine.”

She held him long enough for him to soak through the shoulder of her shirt.

God, he felt like shit. To have parents as good as his and leave them voluntarily, when so many people were robbed of the singular security of having their mother hold them.

Eventually, she pulled away, swiping at her own eyes. “Well, you gonna come in or are we going to stay out here and continue to make a spectacle of ourselves?”

He nodded and followed her inside, his throat too raw for words.

“Didn’t even bring flowers,” she said under her breath as she shut the door behind him, startling a laugh out of him that came out like a bark.

Once inside, she headed to the sink, letting the water run over her hands for so long he knew she was using the moment to collect herself. “Your father’s at the store,” she said before he could ask.

The tiny kitchen looked the same as he remembered. Time had neglected to reach the Conners’ house. Same jaunty tablecloth. Same overflowing pile of cookbooks. Same fridge covered in countless snapshots of family and friends.

Josh couldn’t help himself. He wandered over and traced the faces of his cousins’ babies with a shaking hand. They’d gotten so big since he’d seen them last. What in the hell was Beth feeding them?

His mouth watered from the scent of spicy tomatoes wafting from the stovetop. When he turned around, his mother had shoved a bowl of soup on the table. Apparently, her anger didn’t cancel out her constant desire to feed him.

“You don’t deserve my cooking, but I’m a benevolent woman,” she said, looking at the spoon she’d laid out expectantly.

Feeling surreal, he pulled out the chair and sat. The first bite acted like an elixir. The pain he felt over the loss of Clara didn’t fade, but his vision got a little clearer, and his body no longer felt like it would turn on him at any moment. The soup somehow cast warmth in corners of his heart long gone numb. The feeling of being home was overwhelming.

Despite all the trappings of normalcy, the tension in the room was palpable. After a few bites, he pushed away the bowl. “If you want to yell at me, just yell at me.”

His mother pulled ingredients out of the fridge and carried them to the counter. Josh had a feeling she was trying to avoid looking at him. “I’m not going to yell at you. Though I can tell by that look on your face it would make you feel better.” She slathered butter on bread with angry, jerky movements. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Josh raised his hands in surrender. He knew he’d fucked up in multiple ways and it was hard to know which ones she was most mad about. “I thought you wouldn’t want to see me.”

She slammed the knife down on the counter. “Where in the world would you get a stupid idea like that?”

“Well, for starters, the last time I saw you, I told you I was making porn and you turned white and ran from the room.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Joshua, it was shocking. Maybe your generation is more open-minded, but in my day pornography still raised eyebrows.” She picked up the knife and resumed buttering for only a moment before she stopped again. “Besides, you told me while I was trying to take a twenty-pound turkey out of the oven. I needed a moment to process.”

“It was more than a moment,” he grumbled, reduced to the child who had received regular chastisement at this kitchen table.

“The point is”—she slapped cheese onto the bread haphazardly—“when I came back to the kitchen you’d gone. And when I tried to call you the next day you’d changed your number.”

He’d been scared. Josh hated seeing his mom upset. Avoiding her had seemed a lot easier in comparison. He hadn’t expected to like performing as much as he did. To find himself unintentionally building a life with Stu. The longer he stayed away, the harder it became to bridge the distance he’d inflicted.

The uncomfortable moment of silence was broken by his mother pulling a frying pan out of the cabinet and setting it down none too gently on the stove. When she did speak, her voice cracked in the exact way he knew she’d been trying to avoid. “Do you have any idea how that felt? You scared the crap out of me. I was worried sick for weeks. I had to run down Curtis Bronson at the pharmacy and threaten him with fingernail clippers to find out you’d moved in with some new girlfriend.”

She tossed butter into the pan and it hissed. “I wasn’t mad that you’d chosen porn. I was mad that you chose porn over us.”

He’d never considered that out of all his choices, his silence would be the one that broke his parents. At twenty-four, he’d felt like a failure. No one had expected anything from him and nothing was exactly what he’d given them. “I always assumed I had to choose.”

Bread hit the hot pan with another sizzle. The scent of toast became another memory ignited on this painful walk down memory lane.

His mother finally turned to face him. “That’s the worst part. You gave me and your father zero credit. You cut us off before we even got a chance to respond. I felt like a bad mother, not because you chose to have sex on camera, but because you didn’t trust me enough to love you while you did it.”

Josh realized he’d internalized a lot of the stigma surrounding his occupation. Had let it craft his vision of that November night and the subsequent fallout. “I told myself I was doing you a favor by staying away.”

She sighed, turning to flip the grilled cheese. “In your rush to protect yourself from heartache, you’re always the first to jump to conclusions.”

The truth of that statement was undeniable. He’d rushed to push Clara away before she could condemn him, the same way he’d fled from his family. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve come to accept that that’s a crummy strategy.”

“You owe the people who love you the benefit of the doubt.” She piled the steaming sandwiches on a plate.

Josh rubbed his eyes and groaned at what an absolute idiot he’d allowed himself to be for so long. “I’m really sorry, Ma.”

Bringing the plate with her, she sat down across from him, separating two halves until they created the kind of cheese pull usually reserved for Kraft Singles commercials. “Jerk.” Her smile was contagious as she passed him his own grilled cheese.

“You really don’t care that I’ve been performing?”

“Look, I’ve had two years to process this information and for me, it always comes down to this: I care about you being safe and happy. And about the blockers your father put on my computer so I never accidentally see you mounting anyone. As long as those three things hold up, you’re an adult and I respect your choices.”

The acceptance and love meant more to him than he could ever articulate. “Thank you.”

“I’ve always believed in the infinite power of your goodness, Joshua. I’m sure whatever sex you choose to have, on or off camera, both of which I never want to hear about, is an expression of that. Now I’m going to eat the rest of this grilled cheese sandwich, and when I’m done I’d like to discuss things that in no way involve your genitalia for the rest of the afternoon.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Josh took his own bite, letting his eyes fall closed.

He knew his mom had let him off easy. Knew he’d have to apologize all over again once his dad got home. Most of all, he knew he owed Clara more than an apology. Josh had watched her face her fears over and over in the last few months. Now it was his turn.

He had all the pieces. All he’d needed was the courage to put them together.

Chapter thirty-five

RECKLESSNESS PUMPED IN Clara Wheaton’s veins, as potent as any other poison. Following in the footsteps of many a scorned woman before her, she’d gone and blown an absurd amount of money on a flight and a dress designed to make men pant. The moment she stepped outside the airport in Las Vegas—the last leg on Everett’s band’s tour—all moisture drained from her body. Well, at least what remained following an onboard crying jag that had drawn concerned whispers from several passengers. She supposed most people cried on the way home from Sin City, rather than on the way there.

The travel-size pack of tissues in her purse had proven no match for the way her confrontation with Josh had stripped her of whatever remaining armor she possessed against the world. Every inch of her felt flayed open. Raw.

Love. He’d said love. Love, in the same breath he’d used to declare she’d never find anything better. Despite all the worrying she’d done in her lifetime, none of her contingency plans covered this type of emotional implosion. For so long, she’d refused to allow herself to indulge the idea of building a romantic future with Josh. Two people as different as they were couldn’t fit into each other’s lives without carnage and bloodshed. They’d made an attempt and ended up the first victims.

Reverting to her original plan, otherwise known as Operation Everett, made sense on paper. Clara needed to remind herself of what she used to want so she could stop thinking about a love she could never have.