Lorelie Brown - Riding the Wave

If she’d gone to Candy, she’d have gotten some advice on not crying too long because it would ruin the Botox—and what did she mean she didn’t use Botox? Candy would have tried, but ultimately always failed when it came to the kind of comfort Avalon needed.

Sage’s easy peace washed over Avalon, eventually calming her. When Avalon pushed herself up to a sitting position, her joints felt as weak as seaweed. She’d completely exhausted herself.

In a way, she felt better.

The inevitable had happened. Now there was nothing to be done but deal with it.

Sage stayed where she was, but folded her hands on the edge of the mattress and rested her chin on them. “What are you going to do?”

She grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on her nightstand and mopped at her face. “There’s nothing to do. One of those easy come, easy go things.”

Sage’s pale eyebrows twisted into a knot of disbelief. “Bullshit. People don’t sob their brains out over easy come, easy go. You care about Tanner.”

“Of course I do.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. She couldn’t love him if she didn’t care for him. But she didn’t need to tell Sage every single dirty detail either. “But I’ve got to put my big-girl panties on. It’s over. End of story.”

“You could try talking to him.”

Tanner’s cold, hard face rose in her memory. She shuddered. She would do anything to never again see that level of disgust on his face. Even if it meant playing pretty and polite to keep the surface smoothed over. “No. No way.”

“It’s not worth a shot?”

“Why?” She made herself laugh a tiny bit. “Because Tanner’s such a paragon of rationality and he’s open to discussions?” If he’d broken with his father for almost ten years, there was absolutely nothing to keep him by her side.

It would be bad enough to love him from a distance. Having him nearby, knowing that she felt for him so strongly? No, thanks. She’d already had him in her head for years. Going back would be like walking on ground glass.

And she wouldn’t do that, not even for Tanner.

She could only apologize for being herself for so long, and she couldn’t try to fix everything. Because in the end, she was starting to realize she needed to be needed for who she was. Not because of the things she could do for others.

When she’d made the right choice, she didn’t deserve this level of shit. It wasn’t as if she’d intentionally introduced a serial killer to someone who met his victim’s profile. She’d arranged for a man to speak with the other half of his family.

She knew that she shouldn’t have gone behind his back, but ultimately, what she did was right. She couldn’t let Tanner be a dictator. He didn’t get to make those choices for someone else.

Not for her, at least.

She blinked, realizing Sage was still sitting there. The smile she pulled up didn’t feel like much, but at least it made the worry fade from Sage’s eyes a little.

Avalon wiped at her nose again. “Look, it’s not really that big a deal. Not . . . as things go. I think I’m a little overwhelmed. I have to shoot the Pro, and I turn in the final round of WavePro stuff in less than a week. It’s a lot, you know?”

Sage’s head tilted. She didn’t seem to quite believe Avalon’s line, and, well, she shouldn’t. Every word was both lie and truth at once.

Because really, in the end, only one thing mattered. Avalon’s heart was broken.

Putting the pieces together would have to wait for another time because the doorbell pealed downstairs. She scrubbed her wrists over her eyes, wiping away what she could of her tears. “Showtime.”

Sage sat up. “Is that him? Mako? He’s early.”

Except it wasn’t Mako at the front door. It was Tanner. He stood with his back to the entryway, looking at a middle-aged woman who was walking a small Chihuahua, as if he didn’t even want to be there. The late-afternoon sun gleamed off his blond hair. It was hard to believe it had been less than an hour ago that she’d been in his arms. She willed him to look at her.

Avalon swallowed the knot that had found a permanent home in the back of her throat. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

His mouth was pressed into a flat, hard line. When he finally looked at her, she wished she could have taken back her need to see his eyes. There was nothing there, at least not for her. “Where’s my mom?”

“Probably out back.”

He stared at her for a minute more. The sun beat down on them, making her eyes sting against the tears that had already burned her out. “He’s not here yet, is he?”

She shook her head. She clenched the doorknob, and it was cool against the throbbing heat of her blood in her palms. “No. Not yet.”

Tanner’s gaze shifted past her to Sage. “Did you know about this too?” Sage didn’t answer in words, but she must have nodded because Tanner gave a small nod as well. “Fine. Then let’s do this.”

Tanner didn’t know what to expect when he walked through the kitchen door out to the patio. The sun was at the right spot in the sky to light up the courtyard. His mother was at the far end, her head bent over a trellised plant. In contrast with the shot-silk blouse she wore with a dark blue skirt, which was subdued as far as Eileen-wear went, she had on worn gardening gloves that once had been red. They were now closer to the color of mud.

If Tanner didn’t know better, he’d think they were the same exact gloves she’d worn years ago, when he was in high school, before he’d left for the circuit.

Tanner approached slowly, and Eileen didn’t lift her head even though she had to have heard his steps. He crossed his arms over his chest, but he suddenly worried that he might look too confrontational. It wasn’t his mom’s fault that he’d just had such a giant fight with Avalon.

Because shoving his hands in his pockets felt awkward, too, he settled for picking up a small clay pot. An herb sprouted in it, looking too weedy for basil. A fragrant and earthy scent wafted up from it. “Do you want me to leave, Mom?” The words were hard to wrench out.

She shook her head, but didn’t look up. Her neck was graceful. The blond hair that pooled at her shoulders was shot with gray. “I want this all to have happened ten years ago.” She gave a quiet huff. “No. I want this to have happened twentysomething years ago.”

“Dad should have told you.”

Her head snapped up. Her eyes flashed and the grooves around her mouth flashed white. “You should have told me.”

Tanner felt the insides of his elbows wrench tight, along with the base of his spine. “It wasn’t my place. I was twenty. How was I supposed to go to my mom and tell her that I’d met my half brother. And his mom too?”

“I’m an adult and your mother. Please don’t treat me like a child.” There was no anger in her words. Only soft, chiding disappointment that scraped his skin off. It hurt almost worse than the argument with Avalon had. Her hands kept moving with quiet efficiency, cutting back dead flowers and dropping them into a basket.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. The pain there was subtle, but demanding. He breathed deep. “I never meant to.”

Eileen set the basketful of withered purple flowers on a side table and stripped her gloves off. “I know that. You’ve always had a good heart, Tanner. You get a little bullheaded at times, but it’s part of the magic of your makeup. You’re a world champion and you’re going to do it again. You’ve made the life you want for yourself. I only wish you’d given me that same agency.”

He shifted from foot to foot. His flip-flops stuck to him. “Mom . . .” He sighed and shook his head. He should have done this a long time ago. So many should haves; they stacked up like surfboards behind a team house. “Fuck, Mom. I’m sorry. I got so pissed at Dad that I let it get into everything else, didn’t I?”

She gave his cheek something that was a little more than a pat but way less than a smack. “You watch that language, mister. But otherwise, yes. You stepped outside the bounds, Tanner.”

Tanner scrubbed both hands over his face, then through his hair. “I was trying to do the right thing, Mom. I loved you, and I loved our family, and I wanted to keep you safe.”

“I’m the parent here, Tanner.” She patted his cheek more softly this time. “Even though you’re a grown man now, I’m still your mom. I make choices around here, especially the ones for me.”

He folded her hand in both of his. “I’m sorry. So sorry, Mom. I won’t do anything like it again.”

“God, I hope not,” Eileen said with a wry smile. “I hope there are no other secrets left to keep. I’m about done with them. Tanner, I’m so sorry I snapped at you, though.”

He shook his head immediately and squeezed her hand. “Mom, I get it. You don’t have to apologize at all. Not even a little bit.”

Tanner wanted to be able to accept things like his mom did. He wished he could be that sort of optimist. But that was another element of his father within him, most likely. The asshole side of him. He’d spent years trying to do the right thing, only to realize too late that he’d screwed up. And screwed up badly.

An hour later, the guilt had frothed into a level of upset that had him on edge. Eileen puttered around her courtyard, Sage had taken up residence in the living room with the TV remote in one hand, and Avalon was upstairs. She was probably hiding from him, and as well she should. He didn’t know what he’d say to her. The tension in the house was riding higher and higher.

It kind of figured that it would. This wasn’t any sort of happy reunion. Avalon had arranged a meeting with all the so-subtle tension of a meeting with North Korea.