The Invitation by Adriana Locke

Georgia

“And then Eloise acts like we don’t know what she was doing in Miami,” my mother says about her friend while peering over my shoulder. “Add more cheese.”

I unceremoniously drop another handful of shredded mozzarella onto the frozen pizza. “Better?”

“Better.” Mom kisses my cheek. “Anyway, Eloise comes waltzing into the club meeting with a glow you only get from one thing.”

“The Florida sun?”

“No.”

“You said she was in Miami.”

“There’s more than the sun in Miami, sweetheart.” She grins mischievously. “I’m talking about a hot twentysomething lifeguard who doesn’t need a pill to get it up.”

I chuckle, shoving the pizza into the preheated oven.

My mother was waiting in the driveway when I returned home from The Swill. She walked toward me with a bottle of wine in one hand and a frozen pizza in the other. And on her face? An unmistakable twinkle of forthcoming gossip. Did I feel like listening to her antics? Nope, not even a little bit. But she’s my mom, and she’s always welcome.

“You don’t know if that’s what she was doing or not,” I say. “Don’t spread rumors.”

“If I were getting laid by a college-aged lifeguard with a body made for sinning, I’d want people spreading rumors.”

Shaking my head, I refill our wineglasses.

“As a matter of fact, if I’m ever in that position, consider it your job to tell everyone you know,” she says. “Pretend it’s behind my back, though. I don’t want to look like I’m bragging. And if you aren’t sure about a detail, embellish.”

“What is wrong with you?” I ask, laughing.

“Oh, honey. We don’t have time to get into all that in one night.”

That’s for damn sure.

Our laughter follows us into the living room of my small townhome. The blinds are closed, creating a coziness that I crave. Nothing is better than curling up on the couch under a fuzzy blanket and watching a romantic comedy—preferably alone so no one talks while I watch the movie.

We get situated, Mom stretching across the couch and me tucking into my lavender papasan that’s seen better days.

“What did you do today?” I ask before taking a sip of wine.

“I worked at the consignment shop for a while this morning, then met the girls for Charity Club this evening.” Her eyes light up. “You should see this dress I snatched from the shop today. It’s so stinkin’ cute.”

“Why don’t you ever buy me the stuff you think is ‘stinkin’ cute’?”

She rolls her eyes. “Because I buy that stuff for me. Buy your own shit.”

I roll my eyes back at her, making her giggle.

Mom and I have a good relationship, for the most part. It’s definitely gotten better over the years. We have dinner together once or twice a week, share clothes—mostly, she steals mine—and talk daily. But our interactions aren’t exactly typical.

I pick her up from bars more frequently than she’s ever received a drunken call from me. She asks me for advice more often than I go to her. I know her favorite color, band, and the results of her last mammogram. Does she know mine? Probably not.

This fact bothered me for a long time, but I’ve learned to live with it. It’s just who she is as a person. I think my father struggled with this aspect of her, and the divorce really stole her sparkle for a while. She’s back now, though, and sparklier than ever.

“How was work?” she asks as her fingers fly across her phone screen.

I stare at her. It takes almost a full minute for her to realize I didn’t respond.

“What?” she asks, looking up. “What did I say?”

“You do remember that I haven’t worked in two months, right?”

Her phone drops to her lap. “But I thought you started work at a music studio downtown?”

“No, I interviewed at Mason Music but didn’t get a callback.”

“I swear you told me you were hired.”

“Well, I didn’t. I promise.”

Her face twists in confusion. “So what are you going to do? Do you have any leads?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, struggling to keep my annoyance at bay. “I’m looking for a job. My job right now is finding a job.”

“I know that. I’m just wondering if you’ve found anything promising. Two months is a long time, Georgia.”

No shit.

I swallow my response, knowing it would undoubtedly be thick with sarcasm. That would trigger a melodramatic reaction from her, and I don’t have the time or emotional reservoir to deal with a dramatic Felicity Hayes tonight. I have bigger fish to fry … like finding a job.

The oven buzzes, alerting us that the pizza is ready. I glance back at my mother and find her busy typing away once again. Figures.

“I’ll get that,” I say, dropping my feet to the floor.

I set my glass on the coffee table and head to the kitchen. The wonderful aroma of tomatoes and spices fills the air, making my stomach rumble. I find my oven mitts and remove our dinner from the oven.

Just as I place it on the trivet, my phone rings on the other side of the counter. Sutton’s name glows on the screen, instantly lifting my spirits.

“Hey,” I say, stacking the mitts next to a vase filled with flowers that died last week. Then I turn off the oven.

“Hey, what are you up to?”

“I just took a pizza out of the oven for me and Mom. I thought you were going for Thai?”

“We’re on our way home. I’m in the car with Jeremiah.” The phone rustles. “You’re on speaker. Say hi.”

“Hey, Jeremiah,” I say, leaning against the island.

“Hey, Georgia. Thanks for getting my girl out of The Swill on time. Ten more minutes, and we wouldn’t have made our dinner reservation.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” I say.

They exchange words that I can’t quite make out. Sutton’s giggles are the only clear sounds.

“So Jeremiah has to work all day on Saturday, and I was thinking you could come over and hang out by the pool with me,” Sutton says. “We could talk about wedding details and make cocktails. It would be fun.”

I smile. “Sounds like a plan. What time do you want me to come over?”

The phone disconnects from the speaker, and Sutton’s voice is crisp again. “How does noon work?”

“You know I have absolutely nothing going on right now. Whatever time works for you works for me.”

“Cool. I’ll see you at noon then. And if you happen to be online looking at wedding stuff, I’m thinking about going with peach and gold. I think that would be beautiful in the fall.”

I laugh. “Is that a hint that I should start looking for ideas?”

“That was definitely a hint that you should start looking for ideas.” She laughs. “I’m a terrible decision-maker about things like this.”

“Don’t worry. I got you.”

“I know you do. It’s one of the million reasons I love you most.”

“Hey!” Jeremiah objects.

Sutton giggles again. “I’ll see you Saturday, Georgia.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

“Who was that?” Mom asks, making me jump.

“Dammit.” I suck in a hasty breath. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry.” She moseys to a drawer and pulls out a pizza cutter. “Was that Sutton?”

I grab two plates from a cabinet. “Yes. She wants me to hang out with her this weekend since Jeremiah will be working. Guess we’re going to have a pool day.”

“When is she getting married?”

I hold out a plate, and Mom plops a piece of pizza on it.

“Next fall,” I say. “I’m sure it will be magical and wonderful. I can’t imagine Jeremiah letting her have anything but a fairy-tale wedding.”

Mom’s shoulders stiffen as she takes a slice for herself. I ignore the bubble of uneasiness in my stomach.

Despite all our differences, one thing Mom and I share is our wariness of happy endings. Marriage was tumultuous and constraining for her. Falling in love with my father meant suffering through affairs and making herself vulnerable in a way that wasn’t just uncomfortable but also unhealthy. Watching them struggle to like each other when they were supposedly in love wasn’t healthy nor fun for me. And then my father turning his back on me post-divorce, post-tuition, was devastating. Neither of us has had a good experience in relationships since.

Mom can’t talk about weddings and relationships without growing tense, and she’s written both off completely. In her mind, there isn’t a man in the world worth the risk of being destroyed yet again.

I’m different. I love the idea of weddings and relationships. I’m just not sure either is for me … and I’m afraid to dream of the possibility.

“I hope she gets herself a good attorney before signing a prenup,” she says, heading back to the living room.

“I’m sure she’ll protect herself.”

“Love can make people too trusting. You should ask her if she has lawyered up. Tell her I know a few good ones if she needs a recommendation.”

“I’m not bringing up a prenup with my best friend when she just got engaged,” I say, taking my seat again. “If I felt like I had to jump into protection mode, I would’ve said something to her before now. I wouldn’t be a Jeremiah fan at all.”

She takes a bite of pizza, chewing a little rougher than necessary. “So you like Jeremiah?”

“Yeah. He’s good to her. He’s not just her fiancé, and he’s not just her friend.” I take a bite and consider what I’m trying to say. “They’re a team. Equals. He wants her to succeed as much as he wants to be a success himself.”

“That’s what you think now. Wait until a year has passed, and the sex isn’t fun anymore, and real life hits them.” She sighs. “I hate to be a Debbie Downer here, but someone has to be the voice of reason.”

My lips twist at the irony of Mom being the voice of reason.

“Speaking of fun sex, has Donovan called you?” she asks with a little grin.

Of course, she’s suddenly engaged in the conversation. We’re talking about sex, not something as silly as my unemployment.

Exhaustion begins to creep into my bones.

“I don’t want to talk about this with you,” I say, although I’m certain she won’t drop the subject.

“So has he called?”

I sigh. “A couple of times, but I didn’t answer. Once I’m done, I’m done, you know.”

She chuckles. “Yes, I know. And you better be careful, or you’ll end up alone like me.”

“Who knows? I might.”

Mom sets down her plate and picks up her wine, settling back against the cushions. “Is that what you want? To be alone? Seeing your friends marry and start families isn’t making you want the same thing?”

She eyes me carefully, almost as if she’s afraid of my answer.

My chest pulls tight as I consider her question—one that I’ve been mulling over for a while. A part of me thinks that if I found Mr. Perfect, getting married and having babies would be the endgame. The idea of having the standard fairy tale like Sutton is exciting … for a moment. Then it makes me sweat.

Even when I consider having a family, I immediately envision the end. Where there’s black, there’s white. There’s a sun and a moon—a start and an end.

It’s the end that stops me from heading down that path.

It’s the end that I fear.

“I don’t know what I want,” I say when I realize she’s waiting for an answer. “But it doesn’t matter because unless I found the absolute perfect man, I wouldn’t entertain settling down.”

Her body dips into the cushions. “Good. Now, let’s talk about something else. What did you do today?”

Thank God. “I had a couple of interviews, then I met Sutton at The Swill.”

“What’s that?”

“A little bar near Jeremiah’s and her house. She said it was a dive bar, so I went in like this.” I motion toward my cutoffs and shirt. “Let’s just say there was not one neon sign in the whole place.”

She smiles. “Yikes.”

“I know. And then Ripley Brewer walked in …”

Mom’s icy glare freezes the words as they tumble past my lips.

Shit.

The mention of his last name cools the warmth of the evening. It doesn’t matter how fired up I get about him, it won’t be enough to thaw Mom’s response. I always forget she hated them first—that she hated them before I even knew them.

“Ripley is friends with Jeremiah and stopped to say hello to Sutton,” I say.

She hums.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to bring them up.”

She places her glass down with a clink against the tabletop. “It’s fine. I saw Reid got sentenced and will spend the rest of his life behind bars for his crimes. That made me feel a bit better.”

I give her a small smile, but she doesn’t see it. She’s too consumed by her own memories to notice.

It wasn’t until the Friday of the Senior Mixer, the night I came home crying, that I learned that my mom knew the Brewers. But it wasn’t until later, well into my freshman year of college, that I realized how she knew them.

It was after her divorce, and Reid had given her a fake name and purported to be a bachelor looking for romance. He love-bombed her, and she fell hard. It wasn’t until she saw him in the news that she realized he was a billionaire business mogul—a married billionaire business mogul.

It was her second heartbreak and too close on the heels of the first. I saw her cry more over him than I recall her sobbing over my father.

It was also the last time she fell in love.

She stands abruptly, taking her plate to the kitchen. “What is he like now? Ripley, I mean.”

I stand, puzzled, and follow her into the kitchen. She never wants to talk about the Brewers. Ever.

“He’s still an asshole,” I say. “Not much has changed on that front.”

“Well, stay away from him. Trust me. If he’s anything like his father, he can be ridiculously sexy, handsome, charming, and hard to resist.”

I snort.

“But resist him,” she says, staring at me intently. “If you ever do anything I ask of you, let it be this.”

I laugh, refilling my wineglass. “Mother, you have nothing to worry about there. Ripley is the only enemy I have in this world.”

“Good. Now fill my glass, and let’s change the subject again.”

“Sounds like an excellent plan to me.”

I fill her glass to the brim and then watch her slurp the top as she moves across the townhouse. All I can do is shake my head.

Me? Fall for Ripley Brewer?

“You really should stop thinking about my dick, Peaches.”

I snort and take a long, slow drink.

Not in a million fucking years.