Page 4 of Meet Cute Reboot

She promised she’d live in the guest house. In other words, she’d stay there most of the time, and I would retain my privacy in the main house. We would be like neighbors, she said. Turns out, our definition of “neighbors” differs. Mine means keeping to yourself. Hers means popping in for random daily visits.

Mom rushes over and perches on the edge of my La-Z-Boy. “She looks mortified.”

“You can tell?” Maybe Idon’thave a Cassie spidey sense. Maybe this is a bigger disaster than I realized. And it’s playing out on live TV.

“Luke, what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything, Mom,” I say gruffly.

“Her application justhappenedto match her with you? The guy who treated her like complete trash?”

“I didn’t treat her that badly.”

“Cheating on her isn’t ‘that bad?’”

“Okay, it was bad. But it wasn’t like I was mean to her or anything.”

Mom levels her eyes at me. “Luke.”

“I was mean behind the scenes, but not when we were together. I treated her like a princess.”

“Which made your infidelity all the more devastating for her, I’m sure.”

I glance at the television. Cassie and Felicia are still talking.

“I don’t know, Mom. Maybe.”

“I’ve been there, son. I know what it’s like to be cheated on. You and your father are too alike sometimes. You both think you can strong-arm your way into getting what you want.”

I take after my dad in a lot of ways. We’re both handsome—Mom says too handsome for our own good. Not that handsomeness is an excuse. It’s not. Cheating is a character flaw, and I’ve come to terms with mine. Dad, not so much.

“It only happened once,” I say.

“You only cheated on Cassie once, but what about all those other women you cheated on?”

“I’m not proud of my past.”

“You set this poor woman up on national television, didn’t you?”

“It’s not national television. It’s local.”

“Close enough. Did you?”

“I don’t know, Mom. Maybe.”

“I don’t know, Mom. Maybe,” Mom mocks.

I glare at her.

Mom purses her lips.

I sit up, lean over, and stare at the floor with my elbows anchored on my knees. “Fine. I might be a secret investor in her startup. And I might have had one of her IT guys add my name to her database. But I didn’t know Cupid was going to pull my name up.”

No comment from Mom.

I clasp my hands together and look at her. “Well?”

“You have to make this right. If she’sthe one, you have to fix it.”