The doorbell rang. Arissa wasn’t expecting company and the Belles wouldn’t ring. They’d just walk in. Reaching the door, she pulled it open and then cursed under her breath. She should have looked out the peephole when she saw Catherine standing on her stoop. Oh my fucking god, did she hear already that Arissa was moving shit to Hank’s? Did the woman have his place bugged? What the fuck. She was tempted to close the door in the older woman’s face, and even gripped the doorknob to the point of pain, because she was deliriously happy thinking about her future with Hank and didn’t want Catherine pissing on that. But instead of closing the door, she pasted a smile on her face and tried to sound cordial when she greeted, “Catherine, what a surprise.” And not a good one.
Instead of the stink eye Arissa was growing used to from the woman, she actually looked contrite. “Do you have a minute to talk?”
This was new. Was it another strategy, throw Arissa off balance and then go in for the kill? Arissa’s focus moved past Catherine to Maureen’s house, the woman in her driveway, offering backup. Arissa smiled, Maureen understood and started back inside.
She held the door wider. “Sure.” Catherine stepped over the threshold, then waited for Arissa. “We can talk in the kitchen. Would you like some coffee?”
“Please.”
Arissa didn’t like the woman in her house. And she hated feeling that way because this was the mother of the man she loved, but she just didn’t like her. They reached the kitchen, Arissa gestured to the table. “Please have a seat.” She made herself busy putting on a fresh pot because heaven forbid she give the woman the pot from an hour ago. Once on, Arissa took a seat across from Catherine. “I imagine you’re here about Hank.” If she mentioned moving in or marriage, Arissa was having his house swept for bugs.
Catherine’s gaze drifted down for a second before returning to Arissa. “Yes.” She exhaled. “I feel badly about the other day.”
Arissa’s phone buzzed on the counter, likely a text from Hank. She wanted to read it, but not in front of Catherine. She glanced back at Catherine. She should feel badly, but it wasn’t Arissa the woman needed to apologize to.
“I didn’t mean to overstep. It’s just we’ve always been so close and this town…everyone is always in everyone’s business.”
Manners were manners regardless of where you lived. And since the woman had given shit to Arissa about manners during their first and hopefully only dinner, she should know better than to show up unannounced to her grown ass son’s house. Arissa said nothing, though, was going to make Catherine work for it.
Catherine played with the line in the table and said, “Hank won’t take my calls.”
Her cell buzzed again, another notification but this time email. The words were out before Arissa could stop them. “Can you blame him?”
Catherine’s head snapped up, heat behind her eyes. Arissa added, “It wasn’t just friends, his deputies were there too. And you embarrassed him, Catherine. Sorry, but there’s no other way to say it. He’s a grown man and his mom embarrassed him.”
Arissa watched the older woman, saw the expressions sweeping her face, the familiar look in her eyes but she didn’t attack or speak those thoughts and instead said, “I didn’t mean to embarrass him.”
Bullshit. It was the only reason she was there. “This is a conversation you should be having with Hank.”
There was more bite to her words, a tone Arissa was more familiar with. “Like I said, he won’t take my calls.”
“You do know where he works,” Arissa bit back.
“And that wouldn’t embarrass him?” She shot back.
“If you’re there to apologize, no.” Arissa stood because what she wanted to do was tell the woman to get the fuck out of her house. She didn’t know what she was up to, but she was up to something. She poured the coffee into a mug and dropped it unceremoniously on the table in front of Catherine before retrieving the cream, sugar and a spoon. Arissa eyed the opened bottle of wine on her counter and wondered if it was too early to drink that.
Catherine said nothing as she prepared her coffee and then she leveled hard eyes on Arissa. “I had hoped we could be adults about this.”
“About what, exactly Catherine? What is it you want?”
“He’s my son. He’ll always be my son and at the moment he wants you. We need to figure out a way to coexist.”
Arissa bit her tongue so hard a metallic taste filled her mouth. She spoke her next words very slowly. “I’m not the one with the problem, Catherine. And I want Hank, not just for the moment. I want Hank, period. You need to get on board that we’re together because that’s the only way we’re going to coexist.”
“He’s been here before,” she said, some of that bitchy coming through.
There was no reasoning with this woman and as much as she didn’t want the tension for Hank, Arissa was never going to like Catherine. She knew Maureen would be watching from the window. On second thought, she wanted the backup. “Excuse me for a second,” Arissa said, disappearing from the kitchen, her hands fisting as she made her way to the front door, yanked it open and stepped outside. She saw the curtain across the street move, the front door opened shortly after.
“I thought you’d want back up,” Maureen said, as she
