Page 26 of Alfie: Part One

Jealousy burned through me, and I gnashed my teeth and headed for the—what now? Someone rang the doorbell, and I wasn’t expecting company. If it was another pair of Mormon kids on a mission, I swear…

At the same time, I received a new text, but this one was from Kellan.

This is one part “you’re invited” and one part “the boss wants to see you.” Barbecue at his house tomorrow at three. It’s kid-friendly. Liam will be there. My two cents? Bring your tax breaks. It’s not mandatory, but it’ll look good.

Fair enough. I didn’t mind, to be honest. If anything, it might be easier to hide under the kid-friendly barbecue umbrella if Liam’s presence came with storm clouds. Besides, Ellie got along with everyone, and Trip wouldn’t leave my side until he’d grown comfortable.

I’d respond to him after I told whoever to fuck off.

Shite. A glance through the peephole revealed my mom.

Well, I can’t tell her to fuck off.

What was she doing here? She never stopped by unannounced. The times she was in the area for errands, she let me know the day before, the morning of, and during. She tended to avoid Center City because of traffic.

I opened the door and smiled in surprise. “What’re you doin’ here, Ma?”

Why wasn’tshesmiling, though? I was her baby. She always smiled when she saw me.

“Enough small talk,mijo.” She strode right past me, clutching her purse, and headed for the kitchen. As she always did.

I scratched my head and relocked the door. “What’sa matter?”

“West called me this morning,” she informed me.

Oh, here we go. Another rant about how I should plead with West for us to work things out. I’d miss half of it, because when Mom got heated, she flipped between English, Spanish, and Italian, and she’d opted out of teaching me two of those languages. I knew swear words and some terms of endearment.

“And?” I asked. They talked from time to time—so what?

I stayed near the end of the counter, ’cause when Ma came over, she had this habit of cleaning my kitchen. She didn’t even notice; she just started wiping down counters and setting things back where they belonged. But if I pointed it out, she’d stop. So I kept my mouth shut.

“He is such a lovely man, baby,” she said, opening my fridge. She grabbed the water pitcher. “He thanked me for the recipe for the bread Ellie likes, and then he asked how we were doing.” She really didn’t need to replace the filter in the pitcher. What the hell? “I asked how he was doing too, of course.”

“I don’t need that update,” I said. “I know he’s been seeing someone.”

She looked to me sharply and knitted her brows together. “He did not mention a man. Are you sure? He talked mostly about work and the kids.”

I shrugged.

“Anyway—I need confirmation before I believe,” she went on firmly. “He did ask me something, though. But I said—not my boy. He would not lie about family.”

I lifted my brows. What the fuck had she been smoking?

“Of course,Iknow the truth,” she said, pointing to herself. The pitcher went back, refilled, into the fridge, and then she grabbed a packet of wipes from under the sink. “I have lied a lot in my days, Alfie. And I am ashamed I pulled you into that—but I sincerely hope you don’t think you could not tell your own husband about your roots?”

I stiffened.

“I assumed you shared our history with West years and years ago,” she claimed.

Fuck me, fuck me, exactly what had West asked her?

And of-fucking-course I hadn’t shared that with him. When was I supposed to do that—and why? I had a dad. Sorry, but it wasn’t on my list of priorities to discuss that Dad was technically my stepfather. It just wasn’t on my mind. Then, when West had introduced me to his parents, the notion of revealing my history with West flew out the window. ’Cause West’s dad had fucked me up with insecurities. After that, it was best to simply prove I had nothing to do with my heritage.

In my defense, it had been the truth at the time.

“You said it was between you and me,” I replied. “This isn’t a fuckin’ thing in my life, Ma.” Or it hadn’t been. “I don’t go around tellin’ people Dad adopted me. I mean, it was probably gonna come up sooner or later—I wasn’t actively hiding it from West.” At first. Then, yeah, definitely hiding. All the hiding. I did my best to shrug it off before I got lost in my own lies. “Honestly, I don’t think about the past. You and Dad are my parents, end’a story.”

She pursed her lips and faced me fully. “Is that the end, son? Because West wondered where you have been hiding a cousin named Finn.”