Wait…is she saying what I think she’s saying?
“Are you thinking about helping her out? I thought you worked seven days a week,” I ask, eyebrows raised.
She exhales, and even though she’s stunning every second, the dashboard lights catch the faint weariness around her eyes.
“I’m just…getting a little burnt out, I think,” she admits.
I reach out, resting my hand over hers. “I’m sorry, Rowyn. That’s no fun.”
“No fun is right. Maybe that’s why I asked hot coffee shop guy out…”
“Matt,” I joke with a grin, though the thought of her with some guy I’ve never met makes my stomach twist in a way I’m not thrilled about.
“Matt,” she confirms, a playful smile tugging at her lips. “So…exactly how are we going to make him notice me?”
I hesitate, recalling that ridiculous rom-com plan. “We make him jealous…then stage a breakup.”
She laughs, light and melodic. “As long as none of this gets back to Snowberry.”
I glance at her, and she quickly drops her gaze. “My mother,” she murmurs, voice soft, almost hesitant. “She doesn’t want anything interfering with my career.” She huffs, brushing it off with a laugh that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
I let that sit with me for a moment, the words unsettling me more than I expected. “Rowyn…are you saying your mother doesn’t want you to have relationships?”
I’ve known Rowyn since we were kids, but this is new. A flash of guilt pricks me—maybe I should have been paying closer attention all these years. Hockey was my world growing up, but this…this feels important.
Her voice is quiet when she continues, soft enough that I have to lean in a little to catch it. “She gave up a lot.”
“To raise you?” My stomach tightens. She grew up with only her mother. Her father…was never in the picture. I never asked. Never thought it was my business. But now, hearing this, I realize maybe it is.
I glance over at her, her profile illuminated by passing streetlights, and something in me shifts. Protectiveness. Concern. The kind of feeling you don’t just brush off.
“I don’t think she ever really liked being a mom.”
My hand slides across the console and I take hers into mine. “Rowyn,” I begin, my throat tight. What the hell am I supposed to say? I’m not sure but I settle for, “I’m sorry.”
She shrugs, but this is important. “It’s just that she wants what’s best for me. She worries that if I get involved with someone, have kids, I’d have to give up this career that I worked so hard for if it didn’t work out. Like it didn’t for her. She just worries about me losing it all.”
Worries? I’m not exactly sure that’s the word I’d use. More like projecting her resentment onto her daughter—her own unhappiness—but hey, I’m no psychologist.
“You love your job and who’s to say you’re going to end up alone? You are not your mother and there are plenty of successful marriages out there, where no one has to give up anything. Besides, you have a good job and if something like that did happen, you could get a nanny. You don’t have to give it all up and stay at home.”
“I wouldn’t want a nanny. I’d want to be home, to see the first tooth, first steps, first everything, really. I’d want to be there for school mornings, PTA meetings, all the soccer practices,” she nudges me playfully. “Or hockey.”
My heart trips up in my chest when I hear the want in her voice, the deep longing, as she stares straight ahead and I can’t help but ask, “Do you want a family?”
6
Rowyn
That question sits like a lump in the pit of my stomach.
Do I want a family?
It’s the kind of thought that sneaks in during quiet moments, a thought I usually shove aside before it can settle. Wouldn’t a family interfere with my career? Wouldn’t it leave me empty and full of resentment if the relationship didn’t work out and I was left with all the responsibilities?
Underneath that tidy logic drilled into me by my mother, another voice whispers, soft and certain.
Oh, but you do, Rowyn. You do.