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ChapterTwenty
I wasnervous walking through the door of Mom and Swiss’s house. I hated that. That I almost felt the way I used to feel, walking into my old house in Carver Springs. Tense... Holding my breath for something I didn’t even completely understand.
It wasn’t until I walked into the little house my mom lived in before moving there that it became clear that I’d never been in ahomebefore. I grieved and celebrated that. It sucked that I didn’t get that growing up, but it would’ve sucked a whole lot more if my mother had never found the strength to leave, had never been able to create what she did.
I had to be thankful for that. For her protecting me from the truth for as long as she did.
“You’re back!” Mom yelled, pouncing on me the second the front door closed behind us.
“I was worried sick,” she said into my hair. “Everyone was. You left your phone at the club. I’m so sorry, sweetie,” she said, squeezing my upper arms. “I knew that there was never going to be a good way for that news to come out, and I really thought if I caught him when he was soft and agreeable he wouldn’t go all…” she trailed off.
“Crazy homicidal biker?” Sariah offered cheerfully from behind me.
Mom nodded, not at all surprised to see that my best friend had traveled to Garnett to be here for me. “Yeah, but I should’ve known better,” she sighed. “I really do apologize that that was your first impression of the club, honey,” she told Sariah. “We are a little bit crazy but not usually brandishing a deadly weapon kind of crazy.”
Sariah shrugged. “You’ve got absolutely nothing to apologize for. I was worried that Violet was exaggerating about the club, and it turns out she was downplaying it,” she giggled.
Mom’s concerned eyes moved back to me. “Are you okay?” she asked, looking me over.
“Mom, I’m fine,” I reassured her. “I’m annoyed at all of the people with an XY chromosome and a Sons of Templar cut within a fifty-mile radius, but other than that, I’m good.”
“I’m not exactly thrilled with them either,” Mom’s brows pinched together. “But no one was expecting the news that you’re not only pregnant but in love… Especially since you had been very adamant about avoiding both of those things.” “Are you disappointed in me?” I asked, peering up at her from below my lashes.
“Of course, I’m not.” Her face fell. “No. I’m shocked. I’m worried in a way that a mother worries. I’m trying to recalibrate. I’m also trying to compute that I’m going to be a grandmotherandthe mother of a toddler.” She scrunched up her nose. “But I’m not disappointed. No way, no how.”
“Okay.” I exhaled a relieved breath.
“Now,” Mom clapped her hands together. “Swiss is away brooding somewhere, and if he has any sense he’ll only come back here with chocolate and apologies. So let’s have a girls’ night.”
A small person came running in and attached himself to Sariah’s ankle.
“As long as you don’t mind one boy crashing the party,” my mother amended.
Sariah picked him up, blowing a raspberry on his stomach as he squealed in delight.
“He can always crash the party,” I said, looking to my little brother while trying to process that he would have a little playmate in eight months.
Instead of thinking too hard about that, I focused on my baby brother and our girls’ night. Or at least, I did my best.
Sariah and my mother had a lot of fun that night. My mother cooked up a storm, dancing around the kitchen, trying to overcompensate for the events of the morning, I guessed.
Also because her and Sariah could drink wine. They had two bottles. The bitches.
I was sipping on seltzer water, both hating and loving seeing my best friend and my mother getting along so wildly.
Mom had already started talking about building an addition onto the house for the baby, as if it were obvious that the baby and I would live there. I didn’t have the energy to dispute that because I didn’t even know where we were going to live.
Elden and Swiss were topics we avoided.
I retired to my bedroom earlier than either of them, tired, overwhelmed and confused. Both of them understood me well enough to know I needed that.
Or at least IthoughtI needed that.
I took a long shower. Did an elaborate skincare routine. Put on washed cotton PJs. Brushed my hair exactly one hundred times. Curled into fresh sheets with my latest spicy fantasy read.
It was the recipe for a comforting night, a cure all for the ills of this world, disappearing into another one where the woman was the hero and the male character was written by a woman.
It should’ve been.
