Page 106 of The Write Stuff

I flashed my eyes at Brody. “Can’t you do something with her?” I gritted out.

He shrugged. “Not generally. I’ll try, though.” He grabbed Bree’s arm, clearly intent on dragging her away.

Bree slapped his hand once, and he gave up.

“Sorry.” Brody held out his hands. “I tried.”

“That was the bare minimum of trying,” I hissed.

Mom had lost interest in me. Now that she was in a room with Aggie and Mick, they were the ones she wanted to focus on. “Stealing my husband wasn’t enough, was it, Agnes?” She said Aggie’s name as if it were profanity. “No, you had to steal my son, too.”

“Oh, give it a rest,” Aggie chided. “You’re being ridiculous. This isn’t a mob movie. We’re not rival families fighting for turf. We’re adults. It’s time we acted like it.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” Mom gestured toward Mick. “You won the prize.”

Mick let loose a heavy sigh. “You should know that I told Huxley the truth about our relationship before we have this argument in public, which you’re clearly determined to do.”

Mom opened her mouth, then shut it before darting her eyes to me. “You can’t believe anything he says.”

What I wanted more than anything was to drag my mother to a quiet corner — hell, back to my house — so we could talk this through. She wasn’t going to allow that to happen, though. It just wasn’t in her nature.

“He told me the whole story, and I do believe him,” I announced.

Mom only got more infuriated. “Oh, really? And what is the whole story?”

“I know that Mick and Aggie were together before you hooked up with him,” I replied calmly. It was better to get it all out there at this point. “I know that Michael came back and Aggie tried to make things work with him for Lucy’s sake.”

I took a deep breath. “I know that you knew about Aggie and Michael breaking up before you convinced him to go to Vegas to get married.”

“That’s not true!” Mom practically screeched it.

“Stop,” I said, weariness overtaking me. “Mom, I’m not mad at you for what you did.” I readjusted my thinking almost immediately. “Okay, I’m a little mad. That’s neither here nor there, though. What’s done is done, and things are how they’re supposed to be.”

“Meaning that my husband is married to my best friend?” Mom challenged. “Scratch that. Former best friend.”

I refused to let her turn this conversation into something it wasn’t. “You cheated on Mick. That gave him the opening he needed to follow his heart. Just stop. You didn’t really love Mick. You just wanted proof that the two of you belonged together, which you never did.”

“Oh, well, I see you have it all figured out,” Mom said, her voice low and icy. “Since you love them so much, since you’re taking their side, I guess they can be your parents now. That’s obviously what you want.”

She always took it to a ridiculous place. She couldn’t help herself. That’s who she was. “Don’t phrase it like that,” I said, giving Wylie a sidelong look. She’d been quiet for the entire conversation, and it was obvious she was frozen in fear. I didn’t blame her. My mother was terrifying when she got a full head of steam.

“This isn’t about Mick and Aggie being my parents,” I assured Mom.

“You called me to come here. You said it was an emergency. That’s why I moved my flight to get here early. I wanted to make sure I was here for you, for whatever you were going through.” She sent me a scalding look. “I had no idea that what you were going through was a campaign of betrayal.”

“Oh, I love her,” Bree said reverently. “She’s so dramatic, I want to put her in my pocket and keep her forever.”

Brody slapped a hand over Bree’s mouth but did nothing else. He knew when he was beaten.

It was time to lay all my cards on the table. It was the only thing I could do.

“Mom, Aggie and Mick being here is actually a coincidence,” I volunteered. “They came to help Lucy.”

“Lucy?” Mom wrinkled her nose. “Why would Lucy be here?”

“Because she’s living with Wylie,” I replied. “Wylie moved to town about the same time I did.” I took a deep breath. “And we fell in love.”

It was as if we’d been living in the shadow of a waterfall, and the water suddenly stopped running. Everything went deathly silent.