Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
I shake my head at her and say, “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
“I wouldn’t be me if I could. Go home.”
I motion to Adam, and we fall into step together. “We have a ride waiting,” he informs me. “Damion said you need to go to your old place and pack up.”
I laugh. “Did he really call it my old place?”
“Isn’t it?” he asks.
“As of this morning, when I said yes to moving in.”
“Sounds like a man who doesn’t plan on letting you forget you said yes.”
He’s not wrong, and this warms me in all kinds of ways. I settle into the backseat of an SUV with Adam in the front next to a driver, a man with dark, wavy hair and a muscular frame, who lifts a hand and eyes me over his shoulder. “I’m Kelvin, also with Walker. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say, but I’m uneasy over just how much manpower is going into protecting me. Damion says he’s got everything under control. He tells me not to worry, but he’s clearly worried, and in a big way.
The vehicle begins to move, and my cellphone rings. Hoping it’s Damion, I retrieve my phone from my purse to feel a punch in the gut at the sight of my mother’s number. After what Damion told me at lunch, I’m in knots just thinking about talking to her, afraid to hear what she will say. But I’m also afraid of what I need to know and might not if I don’t answer.
I swallow the cottony sensation in my mouth and answer. “Hello, Mother.”
Kelvin and Adam don’t react, but I can almost feel their unease, their alertness. They believe my mother is a threat, and I don’t know what to do with that information.
“Hi, honey.” Her voice trembles, and I steel myself for what’s coming. “Your father and I had a major fight. I really need to talk. I need to get him under control once and for all before something really bad happens to him.”
My world spins with her words, and with the implications behind them that are so much worse after I found out she was with Damion’s father this morning. Anger burns in my belly and roars to life, but I manage a cool voice as I ask, “What does that even mean? Before something really bad happens to him?”
Chapter thirty-two
At this point, Adam is leaning around the seat, questions burning in his gaze, but I’m focused on my mother. “What’s going to happen to Dad, Mom?” I press.
“I just—he’s gambling too much. We’re both enabling him, and I don’t know how to make it stop. Can you just come over? I’m shaken by how intensely we fought.”
Bitterness overwhelms me. I’ve given up everything in reply to her tears and her begging. The truth is, it’s rarely my father who asks for my help. It’s her, and after what I found out today, I’m feeling pretty darn done.
“I’m not coming over,” I say, surprising myself, so I am certain she is stunned. “I’m moving in with Damion. I have to get packed and moved.”
“You’re what? What are you talking about?” Her tone is biting, angry, and I cannot help but wonder if the source is Damion’s father’s influence or her fear of Damion’s influence on me.
“Oh, please, Mother. You’re well aware of the fact that I’ve been in love with him my entire life. I told you I was going to marry him when I was seven.”
“That was a kid thing! I never thought you’d really marry that man. He was always destined to be just like his father.”
Anger and adrenaline rip through me, and it’s all I can do to hold back an accusation. I thank the reserve the camera has taught me, as I know anything I say to her will be used against Damion.
I burn to say something snippy, for instance, “If you weren’t in bed with his father, maybe you’d be paying attention to what’s going on in your daughter’s life a little more closely,” but I do not. “Whatever the case,” I say instead, the pinch in my chest threatening to create a burn in my eyes, “I’m moving in with him.”
“He’s a player, a manwhore.” Her tone is incredulous. “He’s going to fuck you over and laugh about it. The little girl next door who pants after him. Do you want to be that?”
Her words bite and grind and I feel myself go cold inside, but not because I believe her words. Because she actually said them. “Be careful what you say about Damion to me, Mom. I love him, and you need to be clear: I will fight for him. You need to understand that means at all costs.”
Seconds tick by before she issues a tightly spoken, “I see,” and I can only assume she’s wondering how weird this gets since she’s in the wrong bed and on the wrong side of everything.