I should’ve known we’d come back to this. We’ve already had a family meeting about this, but it was right after I found out. I’ve had months to process it, to think about it, reflect on it. Months to let it eat at me and fester, and suddenly, in the face of all this drama, I realize I might not be over it quite the way I thought I was.

“I get that when she was fifteen, that might have been true, Mom. But you uprooted the entire family, cut her off from all of her friends, and homeschooled Hanna for a year so no one would know that she was pregnant. Then, after she gave birth to me, you sent her to a new school with no friends and no social circle once you deemed her ready.” I pace the room, my frustration and anger mounting. “You talk about it being a family decision, but Hanna was too young to fight you on it and Gerald isn’t exactly a fan of taking responsibility for his actions. And for Christ’s sake, who lets their fifteen-year-old go away for a month with her boyfriend on a cross-country camping excursion?”

“They were in a trailer with the entire family. How would they have an opportunity to—” She makes flailing motions instead of finishing that sentence.

“They were in the woods! For four weeks. Opportunities obviously abounded, since I’m here.”

“He does have a point,” Gerald says.

I pin him with a glare, and he sinks deeper into the couch. “I understand that we grew up in a rural town, with ideas of what was appropriate and what wasn’t. I also understand your motives for raising us like siblings as a result of that. But I think you need to ask yourself this: Was it really good for Hanna, for all of us, in the long run? I get that maybe you were doing what you thought was best, but wouldn’t it have made more sense to tell me eventually, when I was old enough to understand, rather than have me find out from Hanna’s ex-asshole?”

“We were trying to protect you.”

“Are you sure it was me and Hanna you were trying to protect? Or was it yourself?”

Her head snaps back, as if my words are a physical slap. And I realize I’ve hit a nerve. I sigh, and some of the anger fades like vapor. “You know that I’ll always look at you as my mother, right? That’s never going to change.”

She blinks a bunch of times, and her chin trembles. My mother is a lot of things: high on self-righteous conviction, a meddler, a cheerleader, the dominant parent, and passionately maternal. What she rarely is is contrite; even less frequently is she emotional to the point of tears. I drop down, crouching in front of her, and take her hands in mine, seeing exactly how profound an effect this has had on her. I’m still angry, but it’s tempered with understanding I didn’t have before. “You will always be my mom, no matter what. Now I have two amazing women who want what’s best for me.” Three if I count Queenie.

She smiles but it’s sad. “I was scared to tell you. I didn’t want things to change or for me to lose you. And I thought if you and Jessica were back together, I could keep us closer because she already loves us. She loves me.” She lifts a shoulder and lets it fall, her vulnerability leaking through. “I don’t know this Queenie woman, and what if she doesn’t like me?”

“Well, I love you and she loves me, so I think as long as you can give her a fair shot, she can give you one too. But in order to do that, you have to stop basing your opinion of Queenie on a highly slanted tabloid news story meant to incite public rage, by a person who might be a few face cards short of a deck. That woman who was busy dragging Queenie’s name through the dirt also tried to blackmail the captain of our team almost a decade ago by using a plaster cast of her sister’s baby belly and posting pictures online.”

“Wow, now that’s some crazy,” Gerald mutters into his scotch.

“She faked a pregnancy?” My mom seems taken aback. She also tends to take anything on TV as gospel.

“Yes. It was a very elaborate ruse. Rook had to file a restraining order.” I leave out the part where she also asked him to ejaculate in a cup so she could turkey baste herself.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. So do you see now how this biased opinion you have of Queenie is based on nothing but slander?”

Mom squeezes my hands. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been very selfish about this whole thing, haven’t I?”

I squeeze back. “We’re all allowed to be selfish sometimes.”

“I only ever want what’s best for you,” she says softly.

“I know. And Queenie is what’s best for me. Now I need to go fix things with my girlfriend, because currently she believes that my whole family thinks I’d be better off with someone other than her. So I’m going to see if I can set things straight.” I kiss my mom’s forehead, then push to a stand, winking at Hanna as I cross the room. “Don’t wait up.”

CHAPTER 29

GOOD ENOUGH

Queenie

Today has been one hell of a roller-coaster ride, full of ups and downs and loop the loops, ending in a massive derailment.

Seeing Jessica pawing at Kingston was like a backhand to the face with a cactus mitten. She’s so perfect, and blonde and willowy and Barbie-like, but with normal proportions. And he’s so put together and gorgeous and perfectly him.

On the surface they look like they match.

But now that I know Kingston, I’m aware that there’s a lot more to him than just a polo-and-khaki-wearing Boy Scout.

I’ve spent enough time over the past week looking through his social media. Kingston isn’t the kind of person who would delete his memories, or the people he made them with. So I’ve had a front-row seat to the progression of a fresh-faced Kingston with Jessica posed sporadically at his side all the way up until midseason last year.

I can understand exactly why his mother would want them to be together. They are definitely a picture-perfect couple. Until you really look at the two of them together and compare those pictures to the ones he’s been posting of us over the past few months. The sheer quantity alone speaks volumes.

I can see it in the way they orient themselves around each other: familiar but formal, posed but never relaxed, smiling but always a little tight lipped. And then there are the pictures of him and me together—which totally clog his feed and have replaced more than 50 percent of his pregame skate and workout videos. Kingston’s smile is brighter, his posture is more relaxed, and the expression he wears when he’s taking one of his silly selfies while trying to look at me instead of the camera tells me everything I need to know. That despite how different we are, or maybe because of it, we fit. The way he wants me is the same way I want him.

I get that his family’s perception of me probably isn’t the greatest if they’ve been listening to the gossip mill. But come on, everyone knows 90 percent of that stuff is bullshit based on a grain of truth.

And now I’m annoyed, frustrated, and kind of pissed off. Because his ex is here—probably in his house right now—and the woman who raised him as her son is the one who brought her. I’m not pissed at Kingston; he needs to deal with the situation. But in that moment when I saw them together, with his family standing and watching the whole thing, his mom beaming rainbows of happiness, I realized there was clearly a disconnect. And if I’d stuck around, I wasn’t going to make an awesome first impression. Or second impression, if I’m counting the whole tabloid explosion.

Especially since I sort of want to tell his mom off, which isn’t a good way to handle the family-intro business.

So instead I’m pacing the length of my kitchen, trying to figure out how the hell I’m supposed to deal with this. My group chat with Stevie, Vi, and Lainey is blowing up. They’re appropriately outraged right along with me, which is validating.

A knock on the door startles me. A bubble of hope forms in my chest but then pops just as quickly when my dad lets himself in.

“Oh, hey.”

He frowns, taking in the pile of used tissues and me. “I didn’t expect you to be here tonight.”

“Me either.” I toss my phone on the counter and cross over to my fridge, pulling out a couple of beers.

“What happened? Why aren’t you with Kingston?”

I twist off the caps and hand him a beer. “He’s with his ex-girlfriend, because his mother brought her along.”

“Wait. What? His momster or his mom brought her?”

“His mom, not momster.” If it had been Hanna, I’d be a lot more upset, I think.

My dad sets the beer on the counter, obviously confused. “Why the hell would she do that? Why would Kingston let her?”

“Kingston didn’t know she was coming. She was supposed to be a surprise.” I rub the space between my eyes. “I didn’t think a family introduction with his ex-girlfriend there was in my best interest, or anyone’s, really, so I came home, and he’s dealing with the situation.”

“Dealing with it how?”

“Likely in his very diplomatic way.” I glance at the clock. I’ve been home for forty-five minutes. That’s a considerable amount of time to stew. And contemplate whether I made the right choice in coming home instead of standing up for King and myself and our relationship.

“Shit.” I slam my full bottle on the counter, making it foam like a volcano.

“What?”