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“Yes!” I quietly shout, so as not to wake my mom. “No one is engaging with this photo because of the blurry stack of books in the corner, Mylo.”
He chuckles and slowly returns to his pale, hornless mask. “Okay, I will do that as soon as I get home.”
I turn to face him, and he pulls me in for another toe-curling kiss, then whispers against my lips, “Never again, Sidney?” using the fake name I gave him the night we met.
“Correct, Marco. Never again,” I say back. It’s a lie. We both know it, but now it’s also a fun little game, and I love games.
CHAPTER 6
SAM
Weeks pass in a blink, and Mylo and I get into a routine of doing it and promising we never will again. We almost get caught more than once by either Zev or Kyan roaming around the house late at night, but luckily Axil and Vanessa are mostly at her house, and it doesn’t seem like they have any inkling of what’s going on.
I’m most worried about Vanessa finding out because then she’ll want to play matchmaker so that both of us can live happily ever after with our dragon mates, and getting married a second time is not something I want.
Mylo reads to Mom once a week and stays after she falls asleep so we can fool around quietly in my room. It’s like high school, except the sex I have in my room now lasts longer than five minutes, and it’s actually good. We end up in my room or his every night of the week, and he’s insisted on reading romance novels to me after sex, which I always fall asleep to, but I find I am enjoying the genre more than I thought I would. We’ve finishedRed, White, and Royal Blue,The Kiss Quotient, andShanna, already.
Without a normal work schedule, I lose track of the days. It’s only when I get a text from Marty reminding me that we’re having family dinner here tonight that I realize it’s been a month since I came home.
And since I’ve been home, today is the worst day I’ve had with Mom yet. The morning started off terrible and has stayed terrible. She went outside and started wandering while I was in the shower, and I didn’t know she had gotten lost until I was running around the house in sweats, a sports bra, and a towel wrapped around my hair screaming her name because I couldn’t find her. I lost the towel between the stairs and the car and drove with sopping-wet hair down the neighboring streets until I found her barefoot at the bus stop.
She didn’t recognize me when I pulled up, so it took some convincing to get her into the car, but eventually, she was too cold in just her nightgown to stay put. I got her home, showered, and fed, but she fought me every step of the way, refusing to do whatever I asked, and accusing me of manipulating her so I could steal her jewelry.
She loves the telenovelaLa Casa de las Flores, so in an effort to give myself a break, I put on old episodes in the living room for her while I cleaned our bedrooms.
As I’m changing her sheets, I discover a pile of used tissues beneath her pillows. There must be a hundred of them, balled up and sticking together. It’s bizarre. “What the hell?” I march downstairs to the living room with a wad of them in my hand. “Mom, what is this? Why are all these tissues under your pillow?”
She stares blankly at me. “I don’t know. You probably put them there to make me look bad.” Then she gets to her feet on shaky legs and wags a finger at me. “What are you doing in my bedroom anyway? You think I won’t notice if my rings are missing?”
The lack of logic in her response keeps my anger from rising to the surface.
“I’m onto you, girl.”
She’s not in her right mind. She’s not in her right mind.It’s a thing I’ve started telling myself when she gets mean.
“Fine,” I mutter, returning to her bedroom and shoving the tissues into a trash bag. Once the sheets are changed, I go into my room and close the door to call Jackie.
“Hey, what’s going on?” she asks nervously upon answering.
“Mom’s having a bad day. I’m not sure we should do family dinner tonight.”
She pulls the phone away to say something to her husband, Dan, that I can’t decipher. “We can’t wait for her to have a good day to reschedule. Good day or bad, we need to be there. It’ll be fine.”
Well, I tried. They’ve been warned. “Okay.”
“Dan has to take the boys to William’s baseball game, so it’ll just be me tonight, but I think Marty is bringing Holly and the kids.”
“Oh, good,” I say sarcastically. “Can’t wait for Holly to try convincing us celery water is the cure for Alzheimer’s.” She’s a sweet woman, and she makes Marty happy, but her white-lady-wellness gimmicks really get under my skin. It’s one thing to follow trendy diets, but to suggest others join you? Not cool.
Jackie cackles into the phone. “Or…wait, what was it last time? Drinking bone broth after fasting all day?”
“Yep,” I reply, laughing too.
“Oh, and don’t forget about the vagina crystals,” Jackie adds.
“What’s a vagina?” I hear little Xavier ask in the background.
She pulls the phone away again to speak to Xavier. “A body part that should always be respected. I’ll tell you more about it another time. Now, go finish your carrot sticks, okay?”
