I Sat on My Stepfather's Lap All Match, and Mom Was Filming novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Say It Again, Slower

We decided in the dark that I would wear the green dress anyway.

If my mother knew we knew, she would change her plan, and we did not have another one.

So on Thursday night I stood in the lobby of the old club in the dress Gabriel had walked out on.

It was a banquet hall with a carpet the color of wine and a wall of framed shirts.

Thirty men from his old team had come with their wives.

Every one of them hugged Gabriel and shouted his name.

My mother moved through them in a navy dress with her hand tucked in the crook of his arm.

She smiled at everyone, and she introduced me as "my baby, my brilliant girl."

She did not look at the dress once.

That was how I knew she had chosen it for a reason.

Nico arrived late and kissed her hand.

He leaned close to my ear on his way past.

"The big file is safe," he murmured. "Do nothing stupid."

"I won't."

"You will, a little. Just keep it small."

Dinner was long.

Gabriel sat across from me between my mother and the club's old chairman, and under the tablecloth his foot found mine and stayed.

My mother talked to the table.

She told the story of the charity auction twice.

Then she touched her glass with a fork, and the room went quiet.

"I'm so proud of my family," she said. "Gabe has been such a rock this summer. And my Lainey, my little homebody, hasn't left his side."

Thirty faces smiled at me.

"I only worry about her," my mother said, "because she's young. In September she'll be gone to the city, and the house will be so quiet. But Gabe always comes home to me. Don't you, darling?"

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