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Jack and I hurry out of my office, and I grab my water because I get the feeling this isn’t going to be quick, and I’m still trying to flush that shit out of my system. I see people gathering around the conference room and we slip past them. Mya and Emma are staring at the TV with their mouths gaping open. I take a sip of my drink and turn to see what they’re looking at. Water spews from my mouth without warning.
Is that my fucking mother on the news?
I wipe my mouth as Emma and Mya are unable to hide their smiles now.
“Were you drugged?” Emma asks.
Holy mother of all motherfuckers.
She didn’t.
“I’m just saying that my son was violated. By someone we all respect in this community. Now I won’t say his name on air, but I will say…be careful who you trust.”
Yes. Yes, she did.
She really went there.
I reach for some tissue and clean myself up as I internally beg my mother to stop talking.
“That is definitely not okay,” Cecilia, the local news reporter, says. How in the hell did she pull this off, you ask? My father is an executive over at ABC, and my mother obviously stormed the castle and made her demands.
“Just because this certain unnamed dentist’s daughter is a gold digger, and she wanted my Aidan to be a partner at his firm in order to date him? And her father decides to give my son an over-the-top dose of laughing gas?”
“It’s a little funny, no pun intended,” Cecilia says with a wink, and smoke nearly comes out of my mother’s ears. “I’m kidding. It was a laughing gas joke.”
“It’s not funny. He could have killed Aidan.”
Ah…statistically that is unlikely. Headaches. Nausea. Wheezing. But death is not really a side effect from too much laughing gas from what I’ve read.
“Well, you heard it here, folks. Beware of dentists who abuse laughing gas. We have a scorned woman with a father who decided to take matters into his own hands.”
“Scorned my ass,” my mother shakes her head at the camera and everyone in my office bursts out in laughter. “She dumped him because he’s not a partner at his firm yet.”
“Yes, that’s right.” Cecilia is eyeing the cameraman, which I know is code to cut the segment. That they let this take up any time during the afternoon broadcast is shocking. “Don’t take things too serious out there, people.”
“That’s a load of bunk,” I hear my mother shout just as the camera cuts to the weatherman. I glance down at my phone and see a text from my father.
Sorry, son. You know how she gets when it comes to her boy.
Oh, the joys of being an only child.
I don’t respond. Instead, I turn around and encourage everyone to go back to work. “Show’s over. Everything’s fine.”
My gaze locks with Mazie in the doorway and she’s looking at me with the most empathetic eyes. I’ve sent her a few texts, but she hasn’t responded. This is the first time she’s made eye contact with me since our epic make-out session on my couch a few days ago, but she quickly turns and walks away, leaving just Emma, Mya, Jack, and me in the conference room.
“I’m guessing your mom doesn’t know about the real reason you broke up,” Emma says over her laughter. “But that was truly amazing. She is one fierce mama bear, and I am here for it. If someone drugged my babies, I’d cut their balls off.”
I shudder and Jack looks from the girls to me. “What’s the real reason you broke up?”
“I’m begging you not to ask. I’ll tell you someday when I’m not cramping from the milk chocolate currently wreaking havoc on my stomach or how mortified I am that everyone in the city knows that I was drugged.”
“Well, I’m sure your dentist is also shitting his pants that he’s going to be exposed,” Mya says over her laughter.
After several phone calls with my mother, she makes no apology for taking the story public and claims it’s her civic duty. Dr. Rooney personally calls me and asks if I’m going to take his name public, but I tell him I would rather put the whole thing to rest. I have a hunch he will never abuse laughing gas again, and it’s not a battle I’m willing to take the whole way. He’s been a decent man in all the years I’ve known him, and clearly, his daughter spun a very different tale about what happened between us.
It’s late and I’m certain that everyone has left the office. It’s been an exhausting day with all the laughing gas jokes that have gone on around here, and I’m ready to head home.
“Hey, I just wanted to bring this in.” Mazie steps into my office, but I can’t see her behind the gigantic chocolate fruit arrangement.
