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Chapter Forty-two
“No way,” Erin is saying,hands on her hips in front of her mother. “I am not giving her my room.”
“Erin, please. Lower your voice. She’ll hear you.”
“She’s downstairs. She can’t hear anything.” Erin looks toward her mother’s closed bedroom door. “There is no way I’m sleeping in the same bed as you.”
“It’s a king-size bed. There’s plenty of room.”
“I don’t care how big the damn bed is,” Erin retorts. “I’m not sharing it with you.”
“It’s only for one night. Maybe two,” Maggie amends, over the sound of fireworks exploding in the distance.
“No. No way. I’m not doing it.”
“Why are you being so stubborn?”
“Why did you have to tell Mark I’m only sixteen?” Erin counters.
“What has that got to do with anything?”
Erin shrugs.
“You’re saying this is…what? Payback?”
“Call it whatever you want.”
“Well, first of all,” Maggie says, trying to remain calm, “I didn’t tell him.”
“A technicality. You made sure he heard.”
“Yes, I did,” Maggie admits. “I thought he should know. He’s twenty, Erin. You’re only sixteen. He could get in a lot of trouble….”
“Like you care.”
“I care aboutyou.”
“Yeah, well, thanks a lot. Now he says we have to cool it.”
“Which speaks well of him,” Maggie says, trying not to imagine how hot it had been getting.
“He’s a nice boy, Mom.”
“He’s aman,Erin.”
Mother and daughter release simultaneous sighs.
“Okay,” Maggie says. “Can we please get back to the matter at hand? Heidi needs a place to stay for a couple of nights….”
“You had no right to offer her my room,” Erin says as the bedroom door opens and Leo walks in.
“I honestly didn’t think you’d object.”
“You didn’tthink,period.”
“Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. Next time—”
“Next time?You do thiseverytime! You butt your nose into everyone else’s business and the rest of us have to live with the consequences.”
