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She looks up at me. “Your parents are who they are, and they’ll be your parents and in your life no matter what.”
“If I don’t let them, they won’t be.”
She sighs. “But that’s not you, Sidney. You’re a good girl, decent. It’s why you’ve struggled with your mom’s ways. You want to please everyone and carve your own path, and you never quite figured out how to do it. You always ended up with the short end. Truth there is that your young man’s got a point.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
She laughs. “He does. I heard enough. He might have gone about things wrong, but his heart was and is in the right place, like your mom’s, but he doesn’t want to clip your wings. Like me, he wants you to fly, Sidney. You can disappoint everyone but yourself, that’s how you be happy.”
I sigh. “That sounds like selfishness.”
“For some,” she says. “But you’re not that. The only way to disappoint me, and I suspect him, is to disappoint yourself. If you disappoint or anger your mom? She’ll get over it. Eventually. She loves you.”
We come closer to Mack’s place, and I falter to a stop on the dark street. It’s the house that seems to have every light burning. But most of the cars that were there when we went for a walk are gone.
“You know,” Gran says. “Your dad being CEO of a large company doesn’t mean a thing. Doesn’t mean he’s going to be here. And yes, I looked into them. What can I say? I’m curious.” She laughs. “And maybe stand up to your mom. You might find your dad in your court. Maybe not, but just do it.”
I nod. “I will, you’re right.”
“Good,” Gran says, clapping her hands. “I was thinking now?”
I frown. “Now?”
She nods to the extra car. “Yes, now. Because she’s here.”
ChapterTwenty-Five
Mack
The woman—Mrs. Novak, thank you very much—examines things in my living room like she’s a fucking FBI profiler who’s found herself a perverted serial killer.
If she had rubber gloves or a hazmat suit, no doubt she’d have donned them.
As for my brother and no good friends, they all hightailed it out of there the moment her Lexus purred to a stop.
At least Lawson had the excuse of locking up the actual criminal. A man Mrs. Novak pretended not to know. Maybe they’d never met, I don’t know and don’t give a fuck, but she’s the actual princess I accused Sidney of being.
I fucked that one up, I know I did, but how do I get things right when I’m also not wrong?
“Do you know when my daughter will be back?”
“I’m not her keeper.”
The woman stands there in some designer outfit that I don’t think I ever want to see the price tag to, and she’s looking at me like I’ve got the princess locked in some dungeon.
She presses her lips together. I’m still dirty. I haven’t showered. Oh, fuck, she can’t smell the sex, can she?
It was a while back now, but someone like that, wouldn’t put it past her to be able to sniff out an impure thought.
“I just thought my daughter would have better . . . taste, even when trying to make a point.”
“Better taste?” I look around. Yeah. Okay. My coffee table’s a pile of junk now, but—
She means me.
Beard. Tats. Soot from fighting fires, jeans from both working on the floor of my garage and the fire tango.
“Her taste is just fine.”
