“Is he nice?” she asked.
“No.”
Susie sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know where the two of you get your taste in men from,” she tutted.
That made Grade do a double take. He stared at his mom. “Youdon’t?” he said. “What, are you telling me we were adopted?”
She tched at him. “Tommy was a good man,” she said.
“Bullshit.”
Susie slapped his shoulder and pushed him out of the way. “He always treated me like gold,” she said. “And he was a good father, don’t forget that.”
“He was a criminal,” Grade pointed out.
“Said the pot to the kettle,” Susie said as she opened the back door. She raised her eyebrows at him and then sniffed, “Uber Eats, my ass.”
She closed the door behind her with a triumphant click before Grade had a chance to say anything. Grade spluttered at the closed door for a moment.
“And I’d not call myself a good person,” he muttered at last.
The door didn’t care. Grade scrubbed his hand over his face and rubbed his eyes, which were dry and tired despite the few hours he’d grabbed in Clay’s bed. He could have got a few more, but the morning sex had been worth the trade-off.
He looked around the chaos in the kitchen for a moment. Then he put the kettle on the stove.
Grade rapped his knuckles against the door.
“Fuck off,” Dory’s muffled voice told him.
He let himself in.
Dory was facedown on the bed, her booted feet awkwardly dangling off the edge. When she heard the door creak, she lifted her head enough to glare at him.
“I told you to fuck off,” she said. “How much clearer do I have to be that I don’t want to talk to you?”
“I mean, you could have locked the door,” Grade said. He sat on the floor next to the bed, legs folded under him, and held up the mug. “I made you some tea.”
Nothing happened. The sides of the mug were hot enough to burn Grade’s fingers as he waited. Then Dory took it.
“You still suck,” she said.
“I do,” Grade said. “Ask Clay.”
“Arrggh!” Dory spluttered. The bed bounced against Grade’s shoulders as she rolled away from him and—he checked over his shoulder—sat up. “That’s disgusting. I don’t want to think about that. Weirdo.”
She sat back against her pillows, knees pulled up, and sulkily drank her tea.
Grade looked around the room. He’d been in here since he got back, but it never ceased to catch him off guard.
“It’s always strange to come in here,” he said. “My room is just the same as it was when I left. Same posters. Same books. You have framed photos and everything.”
“That’s because I never left,” Dory said. “It’s not like your apartment in LA had K-Pop posters on the wall, did it?”
That wasn’t a question that Grade wanted to answer. In his defense, the posters had covered some disturbing holes and stains. He waited for a moment and then changed the subject.
“Is all this because of what happened? With Buchanan?” he asked.
“When I was kidnapped, tied up, threatened, and nearly got killed? No!” Dory said sharply. Then she looked down into the cup and, in a softer voice, corrected herself. Her mousy brown roots were showing up under the light pink. “I mean, it should be, but it isn’t. Not really.”
