“Why? Because you thought if I knew he was asking about me that I was going to be obsessed with him?”

“Obsessed? Honey, hold on a second. Your father is about to come in here, and I don’t think he needs to hear this conversation,” she said, and I raised a brow as I chugged my coffee. “Okay,” she said with a heavy sigh, and I figured she was in the sunroom, surrounded by various plants. Mom had a true green thumb while I was the black death to greenery. “Why in the world would I think you’d be obsessed with Brock?”

“Mom,” I groaned. “Come on. You have eyes.”

“Yes. I have two functional eyes. You had a crush on the boy growing up, Jillian.”

A crush didn’t truly represent what I had felt for him, but whatever.

“I didn’t tell you about him because you made it clear more than once that you didn’t want anything to do with him.”

Finishing off my coffee, I rose to get a refill and passed Rhage, who was sitting by the coffee table, licking his paw. “If you knew that, then why would you tell him anything?”

“Because he cared about you—he’s never stopped caring about you. Because he was a part of your life for over a decade, and he’s family to us,” she answered as I poured myself a new cup. “Jillian, I’m sorry if you feel like I shouldn’t have talked to him, but when he asked about you, it was always coming from a good place.”

Turning, I leaned against the counter and curiosity got the best of me. “What . . . what was he asking about me?” I knew what Brock had told me, but there was a small part of me that needed to hear Mom validate it.

“He always wanted to know that you were okay. That’s where most of his questions were leading. How you were doing at Shepherd. When you dropped out, he wanted to know what you were planning to do. He’d asked if you had friends,” she said, and I exhaled sharply at the bitter burn in the back of my throat. “I think he needed to know that you were okay and you weren’t alone.”

Pressing my lips together as I held the phone to my left ear, I slowly shook my head. Truthfully, I wasn’t mad at her. I got why he asked about me. I’d cut him off and out of my life with a rusty butter knife. I got why she told him. Brock had become like a son to her.

“So what were you two doing having this conversation on a Saturday night?” Mom asked slyly. “Because I’m sure you weren’t at work.”

“He hijacked a date I had last night.”

“He did what?” She let out a surprised laugh.