“Really?”
She winks. “I know he can come off as…I don’t know, a little resistant to the idea of dating, but, my dear, it seems you’ve got him infatuated.”
“Oh, well, I don’t know about that. It’s still early in our relationship.”
“I know I’m right, dear.” She gives a tinkling laugh, pats my hand. “And it’s quite easy to see why.”
“Oh,” I say again, for lack of a better phrase. I hadn’t expected this much welcome from Ryan’s mother, especially not after she caught us fooling around five minutes after we stepped foot into her house. “Well, thank you. Thank you so much, again, for letting me stay with you. I could’ve gotten a hotel, or—”
“Any girlfriend of Ryan’s is family,” she says, cutting me off midsentence. “Make yourself at home. Can you grab me the spoons?”
I must go all dazed and confused for a long minute because she points toward the silverware drawer and repeats the question. I hand over a set of spoons and she takes them briskly, organizing them on a towel.
“If you’d like to join Ryan upstairs, you may,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to kidnap you to the kitchen. I just thought… I’ve never had a daughter, and Lilia’s far too busy to help—it is her wedding, of course.”
“I’d love to help. Really.”
“Are you, by chance, interested in learning to make lefse? I’d love to teach you. The boys always end up throwing it across the room or wrestling each other to the floor.”
A sudden wave of emotion rocks my body, and I swallow past a lump. I haven’t baked since my mother died. Making lefse might not technically be baking, but it feels close enough. “I’d love that,” I say. “My mother was a baker.”
“Oh?” She lets the question hang, as if not wanting to press. “And she is…”
“Gone.” I clear my throat. “Passed away several years ago.”
“Andi…” She shakes her head, the look in her eyes so filled with sympathy, I find my heart cracking in two. “We don’t have to do this now. Why don’t you find Ryan?”
“No,” I murmur. “I’d really, really love to learn.”
She pulls me into a hug, surprising me as she holds on for longer than is natural. When Mrs. Pierce lets go, she wastes no time jumping into business, asking me to pull out sugar, flour, pots, and pans.
The time passes quickly, and it’s a blast. I can’t say I’ve become a lefse master when we’re finished—after all, I am Italian and not an ounce Norwegian—but by the time dinner is ready to be served, my face is red from the warmth of the stove, my fingernails are dusted with sugar and flour, and my heart is full.
In addition to lefse, I helped prepare the sides for the meal—buttery mashed potatoes, crispy asparagus, tender kernels of sweet corn. The whole experience has been far more enjoyable than I expected.
Through the process, Ryan checks on me several times—at first, quite often, as if worried his mother has kidnapped me. After I reassure him I am helping voluntarily and loving every moment, he grabs a beer and joins Lawrence in the garage where athletics of some sort blare on the television.
“I didn’t mean to make you prepare the whole rehearsal dinner,” Mrs. Pierce says. “I hope I didn’t steal you away from Ryan too much. I know he’ll have an earful for me later tonight, just as soon as you jump in the shower and he gets a moment alone with me.”
“I’ll talk him down,” I say with a laugh. “Plus, I don’t really understand sports, or whatever they’ve got on the TV. This is much more fun, I promise.”
“Really?” She looks so hopeful, so bright-eyed that I’m tempted to squeeze her again.
“Absolutely.” I grin. As weird as it sounds, I want to be part of this family. I hardly know them, but something tells me I belong. “I’m going to run upstairs and change quickly, if you don’t mind. I have flour everywhere.”
“Is everything okay?”
“It’s more than okay.”
I can’t tell her that everything is not quite okay. In fact, with each passing step, my mood worsens. As I ascend to Ryan’s bedroom, my heart begins to race, and I realize that everything is far from okay.
I’d fling myself onto the bed, but I don’t want to get flour everywhere, and I probably don’t need to be so dramatic. As I head into the room, I can’t help but wonder if I’m letting this stupid game of pretend get out of hand. Right now, it feels like I’m going to be hurt at the end of it—and I might not be the only one.
CHAPTER 39
Andi
Once I’ve shed my clothes, I suddenly feel too tired for a shower.
I collapse face first on the bed and lie there, a light cloud of flour puffing off of me. I can’t bring myself to care about the mess. Sheets can be washed, but my heart cannot be magically fixed, and I’m worried. After this weekend, we don’t have to see each other again, and that sucks.
“Hey, honey,” Ryan says from the doorway. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” I mumble into the pillow. “Great.”
He moves soundlessly across the room and sits on the bed. A hand comes to rest on my back. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t bullshit with me, Andi. We’re friends. Friends don’t do that.”
I lie still for a moment longer, wishing the smushy bed would swallow me whole. So many of my problems would be solved if I just disappeared into this mattress. Then I start thinking about what he said, and that word—friend—grates on me until finally, I roll over.
He’s looking down at me, and I almost lose my breath, nearly forget what I’m going to say. His eyes are milk chocolate, dripping warmth. He hasn’t removed his hand, and it slides across to my stomach, low, just over my pelvis.
It sends tingles to my sensitive areas, and I’m instantly turned on. I have half a mind to pull his beautiful lips to mine and kiss him senseless, but for once, I’m too upset to think about sex.
“Friends,” I say.
His fingers tighten, pressing against my skin. It’s tempting, distracting, but I fight the urge to pull him to me. “I thought we agreed—”
“I know what we agreed,” I say. “It was my stupid idea to agree to it in the first place.”
“I’m the one who came up with the original idea. All you did was throw sex into the mix, and I can’t say that I complained.”
“Of course you didn’t complain! You weren’t supposed to complain. This was supposed to be easy, simple. Fantastic sex, no strings attached—other people can do it, so why can’t we?”
“What’s bothering you, Andi?”
His eyes are on me, serious, watching as I consider my response.
Finally, I gesture to his fairytale house, to the warmth, the coziness, the sounds of family showing up downstairs to celebrate the marriage of one of their own. “I don’t belong here. I’m pretending.”
“I asked you to do that.”
“We’re lying to your mother!” My voice screeches a few octaves higher. “She’s a really, really awesome woman.”
“Except the whole walking-in-on-us-without-knocking thing, she’s okay,” he says, trying for a joke. When he doesn’t get a reaction from me, he pauses. “I’ve dated girls before—my brothers have too—and not all relationships work out. I can just tell her we broke up in a few months. She’ll get over it.”
His words are like a stab to my heart.
“She taught me how to make lefse,” I say. “A family tradition. She let me help prepare a meal for the family—a family I don’t belong to. In ten years, there might be some picture of me with you at this wedding, and she’ll be wondering why she wasted any time on me at all, and—”
“Andi,” he interrupts my almost manic voice. “Please, you’re overthinking this.”
“I am not.”
“You’re here as my friend. I care about you. So what if we tacked on the label of girlfriend? It doesn’t make a difference; the label doesn’t change anything. It’s just you and me spending time together like we have been these last couple months. We don’t have to stop being friends after this weekend.”