"No."

There’s no way you’re letting April into your house. You don’t trust her. You know she’s played you before; you can’t imagine why she’d be sincere, but your imagination has launched into overdrive coming up with reasons why she might be insincere. And—to be honest, you just don’t want her around, and you don’t want her in the house. This is your space, and Amber’s; you don’t want April in it.

Besides— “You hired a PI to investigate me, April. He’s still at it. Why should I believe you mean a word you say when you’re actively paying a PI to dig up dirt on me?”

She laughs contemptuously. “Some PI,” she says dismissively. “I don’t see how you can hold him against me; he couldn’t find dirt on a pitcher’s mound. Do you know what he said? I asked him to find out who your new girlfriend is, and he told me it’s my daughter. That girl—”

“It’s true, April,” you say quietly. She slithers to a stop in complete disbelief and looks at you like her ears just fell off. “Amber and I have been dating since the day after her 21st birthday.” You can see the shock hit her like a Mack truck. “And she’s no mere girl,” you continue, “she’s a grown woman—and a remarkable young woman at that. And yes, she’s younger than you, hotter than you, and absolutely has better tits than you. She’s even, allowing for the . . . vast . . . difference in sexual experience between the two of you, a better sexual partner. So don’t go dismissing my girlfriend, and don’t go insulting her. You know from past experience that I don’t take that lightly.”

Amber stares at you with her jaw unhinged, stunned into immobility by your words; but you can see her face filling with horror and fury. “And now I think you’d best get off my property,” you tell her, letting steel enter your tone. “I don’t think we have anything else to say to each other.”

If looks could kill, you’d be on your back with a chalk outline around you and a few dozen gunshot wounds spoiling your appearance; but April can’t kill you with a look, and she can’t find anything to say that would improve her situation, so she turns on a heel and stalks off to her car.

*******

You text Amber and ask her to come by after class. When she arrives, you sit next to her on the couch and tell her what happened. Her jaw drops at your story; the expression on her face is indecipherable. You expect her to reproach you for telling her mother the truth, but instead she says softly, “Thank you for defending me.”

“You’re welcome. Not that you need defending—or should need defending, anyway. I know we weren’t going to tell her now, but—”

“Ssshhh.” Amber puts a finger on your lips. “You did the right thing. You know as well as I do, she wouldn’t have let you get off ignoring her statement; it was really a question, however she phrased it. So what else could you have done? Lie? I wouldn’t have wanted that, even if I thought it would have helped; and it wouldn’t have. Denying our relationship would only have made things worse in the long run.

“Besides,” she says, taking your hands between hers, “it would have felt like you had denied me. I would have known that’s not why you did it, but that’s how it would have felt. This—she dismissed me, and you claimed me. That feels really, really good.”

“It’s the least I could do,” you say, around the lump in your throat.

“What do you mean?”

“You did the same for me.”

Amber leans forward and gives you a long, lingering kiss. When she sits back, she says, “I hate it that we keep having to talk about her instead of—other things—” She blushes, but valiantly continues, “but we’ll need to be alert. I can’t think of anything she can do to us, but I’m sure she’s going to try. She was infuriated at you before; she’s going to be in a blinding rage now. Anything she can think of, she’ll probably do.”