Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 124451 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124451 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
“Shit,” I sigh, hating how right she is.
I go to reach for Bri’s hand but she pulls back with a cringe. “I umm … I think I should give you and your mom space to talk this through. I don’t want her to feel as though she has to play the part of perfect doting Mom because I’m there when all she probably wants to do is rip you a new asshole.”
My brows furrow and I step around my bike, pulling her into me. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” she says, nodding toward Channing’s place. “I’ll sneak back into my room and sleep there tonight. They won’t even know I’m there.”
A chill sails down my spine. “You know how I feel about you staying there.”
“I know,” she whispers, pushing up on her tippy toes and brushing a kiss over my lips. “But I’ll be okay for one night. I’ll lock my door and you could always come and join me when you’re done talking to your mom. You know, if you’re still alive.”
Fuck.
“Yeah, okay,” I say, blowing my cheeks out with a heavy breath. “Do you want me to walk you over there?”
“It’s two steps away,” she says, giving me a blank stare. “Stop avoiding your mom and go give her the answers she needs.” With that, she steps back, pulling her hands free of mine and letting them fall away. She gets to the opening of the garage before pausing and glancing back at me. “Just remember I love you and you’re an amazing man. No matter what happens in there, I’ve always got your back. Nothing that happened that night could ever change the way I feel about you.”
Warmth spreads through my chest, and before I can tell her how much she means to me, she’s gone, slipping into the darkness and crossing to Channing’s property. Needing to get this over and done with, I close the garage door and make my way through the internal door.
All the lights are off, but I see a soft glow coming from the formal dining room right down the hall. I swallow hard. We don’t use that room, not even for formal dinner parties, so the fact she’s decided that will be our interrogation room already has me wanting to run.
An eeriness comes over me as I stride down the hall, trying to make a little noise so she can prepare herself. Only as I turn into the dining room, I realize that she’s not only prepared, but she’s ready to fucking go.
A bottle of wine rests on the table, nearly empty, and her lipstick stains the rim of her glass. She’s been going hard on the bottle, so hard there’s a condensation circle around the bottom, directly against the table, which is unheard of from my mother.
“Sit down,” she says, not even looking up at me.
I nod and walk past her, quickly scanning the photographs on the table and the other paperwork I didn’t even know existed, but from here there seems to be some kind of statement, and my guess would be it’s from the mother or a neighbor who witnessed the break in. All I know is that for it to be on this very table, it must have my name written all over it.
Taking a seat just down from her, I prepare myself to face the firing squad, and as I glance up, I see the almost empty bottle of white rum sitting beside a tall shot glass.
Fuck.
Mom lifts her glass of wine to her lips and takes a sip, still not able to look at me before putting it down a little too hard. “Talk,” she spits.
“Mom,” I say, something breaking inside of me as I brush my fingers over the photographs. “This isn’t who I am. I never wanted to be a part of any of that, and had I known … fuck, Mom. I screwed up. I was young and stupid with a chip on my shoulder, and I … I swear to you, I’ve felt sick about this since the day it happened.”
Mom’s head snaps up, her sharp glare locking directly onto mine. “I don’t want your excuses or to hear your groveling. You’ve had four years to come to me with this. I want to know what the fuck happened and why the hell you were in that house. I want every last detail, right down to your specific involvement, and why the hell these documents anonymously showed up on my doorstep. You’re not to stop speaking until I physically ask you to. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Mom,” I say, never having felt this low in my life. But just as she asked, I give it to her straight, not skipping out on a single detail, just as I’d done with Bri. I give her the ins and outs, the very thoughts that were going through my head at the time, and the way I almost pissed my pants when that gun was pointed at that little boy and rang loudly through the house.