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one. It’s just a dream right now.” Jason shot a glance at me. Annoyance showed in his tightly pressed lips. He wasn’t happy I’d outed his personal fantasy.
    “ Dreams don’t come to fruition without some solid preparation. It’s never too early to make a plan,” Mom pointed out. “If you’re going to get ahead, you need to organize yourself.”
    Irritation swelled from a mild itch to a poison ivy rash inside me. “You see, Jason, the only proper way to get through life is to map out every move, every detail of every day. Goals and planning make the world go round,” I explained.
    A slight frown perched between my mother’s perfectly manicured eyebrows. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with having some organization in your life. If more people in our society bothered to plan ahead, the country wouldn’t be in the mess it is today.”
    “ That includes the government,” my dad chimed in helpfully. “Nobody in either party has a clue where they’re going from one minute to the next.”
    I didn’t really disagree, but I also didn’t like the way a discussion about Jason’s vague future plans had evolved into some sort of statement. As if my parents believed he was infected with a slacker mentality inherent in my generation.
    “Jason is happy in his job. If he chooses to keep on working at Happytails and never becomes an entrepreneur, it’s his choice.” I heard myself speaking too loudly, a little drunkenly, but it was too late to tone it down.
    “Besides, somebody has to shovel the shit.” Jason smiled, clearly trying to ease the tension, but he didn’t realize my mom wasn’t laid-back like his parents. She absolutely detested coarse language.
    Her face froze , and abrupt silence filled the room.
    Until now, Gulliver and Haynes had been in their own little world at one end of the table, talking nonsense to each other and occasionally being shushed by their dad. But now Haynes erupted. “Aw, he said a bad word!”
    “He said shit,” Gulliver announced in case we’d missed it. “Mrs. Labadie says that’s cursing . Brenda got in trouble when she said it at school.”
    “It’s not a polite word, but Jason wasn’t cursing,” Chloe said. “Eat some of your vegetables and stop worrying about what grown-ups say.”
    S he changed the subject, launching into a long ramble about a Costco that was opening up near her neighborhood. In that moment, I loved my cousin just a little.
    We got through the rest of the meal with stilted politeness. Afterward, Jason took Baby for a walk while I helped clean up the kitchen. With Chloe there, my mom and I kept our talk all surface.
    It was weird how little Mom had said on the subject of Jason moving in since I’d first told her about it. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Considering the things she’d said to me after first meeting Jason, there was no way she’d continue to let our relationship exist without comment, but for now, she kept her opinions to herself.
    Another couple of hours coasted by on talk of relatives and past Christmases. By that point, even Chloe had run out of things to say, and we all retired early.
    As soon as Jason and I entered the bedroom, he collapsed facedown across the bed. I followed his example, sprawling beside him and looking around the room I’d lived in for more than half of my life. A new paint job, carpet, curtains, and bedding had erased all traces of my teenage years. But the bed itself was the same. I curved a hand around one post, feeling the familiar smoothness and bumps of the carved wood.
    Jason turned his head to face me. “You don’t have to speak for me when we’re with your parents. If they ask me a question, I can answer for myself.”
    “I’m sorry.” I didn’t point out that his comment about shoveling shit hadn’t really gone down that well with my mom. “It’s hard for me to bite my tongue around them. Around her . ”
    “Maybe you need to stop feeling like you have to prove