Perfect.
While lying in bed, browsing girl on girl porn—my favorite—a knock sounded on my bedroom door. “What?” I called out.
“Can I come in?”
I rolled my eyes at my mother’s request and set my phone face down on the bed beside me. “I guess.”
The door opened and she walked in. “Have you decided what you’re going to do for community service? It starts in two—”
“No,” I snapped, cutting her off.
Mom sat on the bed next to my phone, which I knew was silently playing a video of a woman going to town on another woman’s ass with her tongue. “Remember the judge said if you don’t—”
“I know what the judge fucking said, Mom.” At my sentencing or whatever you want to call it, the judge had stated that if I didn’t pick something, he would.
“Don’t talk to me that way,” she snapped as she stood.
I groaned. “Sorry. I’m just over this shit.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and peered down at me with her brown eyes. “You’re the one who did this, Blake. It’s time to man up and pay the price.”
“I know!”
“I’m tired of your attitude. We didn’t do this to you.”
I rolled my eyes again. “I know that.”
“I made a call.”
I sat up fast. “You made a call? To who?”
Mom sat back down on the bed beside me, and I glanced at my phone, praying she wouldn’t move it and notice what was on the screen. “Your father and I think that picking up trash or serving meals to the homeless wouldn’t teach you a lesson.”
I chuckled sarcastically. “Teach me a lesson?”
“Yes, teach you a lesson. You need real work.”
“Pretty sure keeping the Texas highway clean and feeding the homeless is real work, Mom.”
“Of course it is, but your father and I know that you’ll find a way to cut corners and continue to not care about anyone except yourself.”
I rolled my eyes once more because … Well, because they were right. How hard was it to serve slop to the needy and walk the highway looking for garbage? I could do either one of those faster than lightning and call it a day.
“Look, I called my friend Deb out in Medina. She’s a friend from high school who recently lost her husband to cancer, and she has a large farm that she needs help with.”
“You want me to shovel horse shit?”
Mom cracked a smile as though she could picture me doing just that. “You’re to do whatever Deb needs you to do. Her niece is there for the summer as well, and with both of you helping her, Deb will get through apple season. That’s where they make their money.”
“Picking apples is real work?”
She stood again. “Getting up at sunrise and not ending work until sundown is real work.”
“I only have five-hundred hours to do,” I reminded her.
“And with fifteen-hour days, six days a week, you’ll get it done in less than two months.”
I stared at her as she walked to the door. I liked the sound of getting it done in less than two months because I could still start classes in August and start planning my nightclub venture. It was time to bust out my cowboy hat because this city boy was going to start wearing Wranglers and chewing hay.
