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“Yes, we will,” my mom agreed eyes fixing us in place. But only for a moment. Because then I saw her transform in front of me, shifting back to absentminded, her smile small, her tone light and easy. Affecting a role. Saying the right thing. Even if, inside, she was a million miles away. “You two have fun.”
“We will,” Joel told her, taking us back a step.
“BR,” my dad ordered before we’d completed it. “Make sure you—”
If I’d been alone with them, I would have mentally closed my eyes and tried to summon up my well of patience. I would have stayed there and listened and tried—somehow—not to absorb the pain that always trailed his harsh words.
But I wasn’t alone.
Joel was next to me. Waswithme.
So, he spun us away, marched us off, calling back over his shoulder, “Have a nice night.”
And then…he took me to dinner.
No lectures.
No snark or fighting.
Just me and Joel…andnormal.
It wasawesome.
Thirty-Three
Joel
My woman had won her election.
Not that it was a surprise.
My woman was a badass—and a great mayor.
Her parents, though…they were shit. I’d known that from witnessing one lecture weeks before—though I’d been holding back a bit of hope that her mom wouldn’t be awful.
She wasn’t. I guessed.
She just wasn’tthereeither.
Another layer peeled back, seeing Billie’s face up close as her father’s brusque words rolled through the air, scouring my skin, and making me want to lay into the fucker, as her mom tuned into the conversation before drifting right back out of it again.
And Billie—mybadass Billie Rose—had taken it.
Like she’d takenharpy.
Rolling with it, acting like it was no big deal, even as it cut her deep.
Like she drank the celebratory beers a handful of people bought her that night—at least until I’d started sneaking them away from her and downing them in big gulps.
Now we were back at the trailer, sitting on the steps, and I was pondering the puzzle that was Billie Rose—a woman I always thought took no shit, had a spine of steel. I wasn’t saying that wasn’t true…
But she had a vulnerable underbelly.
One that seemed to get wounded regularly—wounds she hid or buried or pretended didn’t exist.
I didn’t like this.
For obvious reasons.
