Chapter 7

My mother, Barbara, who’d always preferred to be called Barbie, got to her feet. I was pretty sure she’d shrunk in size, or maybe that was my memory. She couldn’t be more than five feet four inches. She seemed especially short since I was six feet and Zach stood two inches taller than me.

She stepped over to us. Actually over to Zach, ignoring me altogether for the moment.

“You must be Zach.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, taking her offered hand. I suspected he thought he was supposed to shake, but my mother had decided to keep his hand in hers.

“The new boyfriend,” she murmured.

I opened my mouth once more to refute the misconception.

“Right,” Zach said instead, and I only just managed not to glance at him in surprise.

While I agreed Raine and everyone had other things on their minds, I didn’t think it was right to deceive anyone.