Romance Collision ✔

ღChapter Forty-Seven: Mother-Daughter Heart-to-Heart

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Eve turned from the door, shutting her eyes. She clenched her jaw, taking in a deep breath. 

When she opened her eyes, turning to face her only friend standing nearby, Eve softly asked, "Am I wrong, Bea?"

Bea lowered her brows. "About...?"

Eve shifted uncomfortably. She winced, tucking her hair behind her ear. "About maybe wanting to be friends with Gabriel?"

The blonde walked over and suddenly pulled Eve into a tight hug who immediately tensed from the contact. After a split second, Eve wrapped her arms around Bea.

"I honestly think it's wonderful, Eve. I think you trying to get along with him is a really good start." Bea pulled back but still held Eve's shoulders. "And I also think that maybe you already have feelings for Gabe." 

She grinned, catching Eve frown and open her mouth. "—but even if you do... Don't you regret it for one minute. Taking chances is what life is all about."

Eve had never really heard Bea take on the Fortune Cookie persona before, but was touched by the heartfelt advice. 

Bea smiled softly, "Sometimes thinking with this---" she placed a hand over her heart. "—can give us what we thought we didn't want in the first place."

She winked at Eve, giving her one last hug before sighing that she was going to head home. 

Her friend swallowed, softly apologizing for the awful things that Charlie said about Greg. Bea shrugged a shoulder, and did so again when Eve tried to reason that Bea's boyfriend loved her.

"Just enjoy tonight, Eve. Don't worry about me. Enjoy the dinner and get to know Gabe better. Perhaps start your friendship with him tonight. Then maybe tomorrow night you can come over and tell me all about it."

Bea gave Eve a tiny smile, her blue eyes trying to blink away the tears. "And maybe bring me a cone of Rocky Road?"

Eve tilted her head to the side, her heart hurting for her dear friend. She nodded, offering a better option. 

"I'll make sure to bring the whole container."

Wiping away her eyes, Bea wiggled her fingers as a goodbye before hurriedly leaving the room. Eve could hear her running down the steps. Eve didn't feel like having fun tonight anymore. She was worried about Bea.

How was Eve supposed to go to enjoy her meal knowing her friend was heartbroken over one of the boys Eve would be eating dinner with?

Eve frowned, scrunching her nose.

Greg wasn't capable of cheating on Bea. He liked her too much. Loved her. Eve knew this for a fact because the egghead was always making Goo-Goo eyes at her friend whenever Bea wasn't looking. 

Or Greg would take the teasing his brothers gave him about being whipped, with a giant love-sick grin. No. Greg couldn't have cheated on her. 

Charlie just said that horrible thing to hurt Bea, or misunderstood something that may have occurred between Kara and Greg before Greg got with Bea. 

If the first... then Eve was going to be digging out Greg's eyes with a spoon. If the latter... then Eve was going to have to do some digging to prove Greg's innocence.

"Kisses?"

Eve blinked, looking up at her mother's head poking through the open door. She hadn't even heard her mother knock. 

Riley stepped inside, concern on her face as she shut the door. "I heard a lot of shouting. Are you girls alright?"

She saw the look on Eve's face and frowned.

Sitting on the edge of the mattress, with the outfit in her lap, Riley asked Eve what was bothering her. The teenager brushed her hand over her hair and sat beside her mother.

"Charlie and I aren't friends anymore."

Riley lowered a brow and lifted a hand to place the loose curl away from Eve's face.

"Is there any way to mend it?"

Eve shook her head, looking down at her hands in her lap. "Not unless I decline the dinner invitation... and not speak to Gabriel anymore."

Her mother couldn't help the tiny grin forming at the corner of her lips. Her gray eyes observed the way Eve bit her lip, frowning.

"Do you want to stop speaking to him?" Riley questioned. She could see the uncertainty on her daughter's face. But then her daughter sighed, looking upward.

Eve shrugged a shoulder. "I thought I did... at first... but then him and I hadn't spoken in over a month. And then today happened with the baking mess." She glanced at her mother, her cheeks turning crimson. "And I found that maybe Gabriel McNeill isn't the nasty git I made him out to be all these years."

Her mother raised a brow, smirking.

Eve caught this and pulled her body away a little. "What...?"

Riley smoothed Eve's untamed curls, looking at her hand as she did so, sighing, "Oh, Kisses. I think it's about time you start trying to let Charlie do things for herself. You've been there for her all the time—making sure she doesn't get hurt."

Eve glanced away, thinking over the number of things that had happened this year that proved that accurate.

Her mother continued, insisting, "But now you need to stop worrying about Charlie and worry about Eve. Go to the dinner and have fun. No one is telling you that you have to like a boy just because everyone else does. You are going because you were invited, and you are attending the dinner with your friend, Greg, and his two brothers who you've somehow caught in your web."

Her daughter looked down, blushing more. She scrunched her nose, shaking her head. "Garrett and I are friends, Mom."

Sighing with her eyes closed, Eve groaned, "But I've kissed Gabriel and... and..." She raised her shoulders, peeking slightly through one eye at her grinning mother. "I think maybe I have feelings for one of them. Like... like a lot."

Eve bit her lip, laying her head on her mother's lap. She closed her eyes, brows furrowed, at the relaxing caress of her mother's fingers on her hair.

"I just have a bad feeling that things are going to get worse. Like I'm going to find something out that I could have been glad not knowing—and I'll become this angry person again." 

Eve opened her eyes, still feeling her mother's caressing touch. She whispered so softly, Eve wasn't expecting her mother to hear her wonder, "What if I fall in love with him?"

"Then he's going to be the luckiest boy in the world," her mother assured.

Eve rolled her head to look up at her mother smiling down at her. Her mother used a finger to tap Eve's nose. 

"You are so deserving of that kind of special emotion, Everleigh. You just happen to be one of the ones who make it worth the while."

Her mother tapped her nose again, asking if Eve would like to see the outfit for the dinner that she was going to. Eve knew it was her mother's way of telling her that Eve was going to the dinner no matter what. That Eve wasn't going to pass up the dinner to regret it later.

"I'd love to," Eve smiled.