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  “Hi, guys,” she said, and was greeted with a chorus of “hey” and “hi, Mrs. Cooper.” She gave Tristan a raised-brow look. “I sure hope you’re going to clean this all up.”

  “I didn’t think you’d be home until later,” Tristan said.

  “Clearly.” Stella looked around the room again, calculating how long the group must’ve been ruining her kitchen. It didn’t take long, she knew that, but it still looked longer than a few hours, which it should’ve been if Tristan had been with his dad until this morning. “I’m going upstairs to unpack. Tristan, if you have laundry, please bring it down so I can get a load started before tomorrow.”

  Behind her, the room erupted again into laughter as she left the kitchen. She wasn’t happy about the idea that maybe Jeff had fallen down on the parenting job again, or that Tristan had been home by himself this weekend. For the most part, his friends were good kids, and she’d rather have them hanging out here than someplace else. Still, it wasn’t a good idea for her empty house to be where they did it.

  She thumbed in Jeff’s house number, knowing Cynthia would be the one to answer it. The situation with Matthew and Caroline had made Stella even more careful about how she dealt with her ex-husband and his new wife. “Cynthia. It’s Stella.”

  “Oh, hi, Stella!” Cynthia always sounded so chipper. So perky. It was disgusting.

  “Hey. Is Jeff around? I need to talk to him about Tristan.”

  “Jeff went to Atlantic City for the weekend for a poker tournament. He won’t be home until late tonight.” Cynthia sounded slightly less perky about that.

  Stella paused in sifting through her dirty laundry. “Was Tristan with you this weekend?”

  “No.” Cynthia sounded hesitant now. “Was he supposed to be?”

  “Yes, actually. I was out of town.”

  “Oh. Stella, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I guess Jeff didn’t know either. Do you want me to leave him a message?”

  “No,” Stella said. “I’ll call his cell phone.”

  That set Cynthia off. “Oh, oh...”

  “I’ll handle this, Cynthia. Thanks.” Stella disconnected before the other woman could say anything else, and dialed Jeff’s number. Typically, he didn’t answer, but that’s what voice mail was for. “Jeff. Please tell me you did not go to Atlantic City knowing your teenage son was left home alone for the weekend. I’m sure you won’t call me back when you get this, but don’t think we’re not going to talk about it.”

  Downstairs, the look on her face scattered those boys like leaves in a brisk autumn wind. She barely had to say a word before they were all making stammering excuses and fleeing, leaving a guilty-faced Tristan to stand in front of her among the detritus of what had clearly been a weekend-long orgy of takeout food and video games and whatever else it was teenage boys did when they were alone. She didn’t want to think too hard about it.

  “You have something to tell me?”

  “I was going to clean it all up before you got home,” Tristan said.

  Stella lifted an eyebrow. “You realize that’s not the point I’m trying to make. Right?”

  Tristan stayed silent, which was probably smart. She gestured at the kitchen. “Clean this up. Now.”

  Upstairs again, her phone alerted her to a message from Matthew. She thumbed in his number instead of replying via the app. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” He sounded wary.

  Stella paused. “Bad time?”

  “The girls are here. Caroline’s just dropping them off now.”

  Well, at least he’d answered her call rather than letting it go to voice mail. “Ah. Sorry I didn’t warn you I was going to call. I just got home and found the house a mess. Tristan was here all weekend with his friends. Apparently his dad blew off his parental responsibilities in favor of a boys’ weekend away.”

  “Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

  She paused again, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. “Caroline’s still there, huh?”

  “Yes. Yeah. Uh-huh.”

  It would’ve been funny, maybe, if Stella weren’t already annoyed. Or if it was, in fact, humorous instead of slightly insulting. She breathed out a low, irritated sigh and caught sight of Tristan trying to sneak past her door unnoticed.

  “I’ll talk to you later. Maybe,” she amended. “I’m sure you’ll be so busy with the girls you won’t have time.”

  “Hey, that’s... Yeah, okay. Sure. Sounds good.” His voice, so carefully neutral, curled her lip.

  “Whatever,” Stella said, and disconnected. Tucking her phone in her pocket, she rapped on Tristan’s door, waiting for him to answer before she opened it. “Hey. We need to talk.”

  Tristan sighed, head hanging. “I knew you’d be mad.”

  “So why did you do it?” She’d have sat to talk to him, but as usual, every open inch of space in his room was covered with crap she didn’t have the strength to yell at him about. “You know how I feel about you being here alone.”

  “I’m gonna be seventeen, Mom! I’m fine! I can take care of myself.”

  “It’s not that I worry you can’t take care of yourself, Tristan. I don’t want a house full of boys here while I’m gone and can’t be here in case something happens. And I’m sure that your friends’ parents don’t want them hanging around unsupervised either. I’m a mom. I know this stuff.”

  Tristan didn’t say anything, though at least he looked ashamed and not belligerent. It could go either way with him, these days.

  With a sigh, Stella leaned against the bedpost. “I want to trust you, but stuff like this is exactly why I can’t.”

  “We weren’t doing anything bad,” he said defensively. “All we did was play Honor Bound 3 and watch movies.”

  “When did you find out your dad wasn’t going to be home?”

  “Friday afternoon. After you were gone.”

  Stella frowned. “He didn’t tell me he’d changed plans.”

  “I didn’t want to hang out there with Cynthia. She doesn’t care if my friends come over, but it’s weird, Mom. She makes us sandwiches and is sort of...annoying.”

  Stella could completely see that. But that didn’t change anything. “You should’ve texted me right away.”

  “Would you have come home?” Tristan tossed the question at her, and Stella fumbled it. “No. I didn’t think so. You’re too busy with your boyfriend to bother.”

  Stella had not yet started calling Matthew her boyfriend; they hadn’t talked about what they were. But she’d made no secret of him and hearing her teenage son say it in that snide tone didn’t make it sound very good. “That’s not fair.”

  “Well. It’s not fair that you’re always running off to spend time with him so that I have to deal with it either!” Tristan shoved at a pile of papers on his desk and sent them fluttering to the floor.

  This raised an eyebrow. “I’m hardly always running off to spend time with him, Tristan. I’ve been to Chicago three times in two months.”

  “You’re on the phone with him all the time.”

  “You talk with your friends all the time,” she pointed out, calmly, she thought, though the idea that her son might’ve heard the content of her conversations didn’t settle too well in her gut.

  “That’s different.”

  “Because you’re the kid and I’m the mom? I’m not allowed to have friends?” Stella shook her head. “Tristan, that’s not fair. And, look, I’m sorry if you think my attention’s been taken up too much with Matthew. I’m sure it might seem that we spend a lot of time together, but we really get very little—”

  “All the time,” he said sullenly. “You’re always on your phone, messaging him.”

  Coming from the boy who practically needed to be surgically separated from his phone, this was pretty rich. Stella didn’t laugh,