An hour or more of silence passes before a doctor comes out to say she’s doing better now, but we still can’t go inside. They’ve had to put her under a seventy-two-hour watch, and she’s not allowed visitors until the time is up.
We stay sitting with the family and Dax for another hour or so, but then Cali turns to me. “Let’s just go.”
I begin to shake my head, but she stops me.
“Really, let’s go. We can’t see her anyway and it will only stress her out if she knows we’re all out here waiting for her. Besides, Dax’s here.” She turns to him and he looks up from where his face was buried in his hands, his eyes red as if he were hiding his emotions. “You’ll call us if they tell you anything else?”
He nods. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says as he gets up and walks away from everyone, but we know what he means.
We make our way downstairs and out the front door to find the boys are in the exact place we left them.
They never did pull away.
A smile graces my lips, and we climb inside, dropping Cali at her house before heading back to mine.
Ransom shifts us both, pulling my upper half to his chest as he rests sideways, and I lift my legs onto the seat.
I close my eyes, focusing on the touch of his hands as he runs them through my hair.
It’s relaxing, calming.
He’s addicting.
But bubbles are meant to be popped, and the one we placed ourselves in was thin from the start, so when Beretta’s troubled “heads up” is spoken, I should have known the needle was close and pointed our way.
Ransom’s body grows tense beneath me, his hands freezing in my hair, and my eyes open.
Slowly, I sit up, realizing we’re on my street, a car-length distance away from my driveway.
My driveway... that my mother stands directly in the center of.
Waiting.
“Oh shit.”
Arsen slows to a stop. Her deep frown is usually vacant, but currently her severely pissed-off eyes fall on mine. She doesn’t spare the boys a glance and she doesn’t wait for me to climb from the car.
She gracefully turns on her heels and walks inside, knowing full well I’ll follow... like a good little daughter would.
I silently climb from the car, spinning to face them, but I don’t know what to say.
Turns out, I don’t have to.
They understand.
Ransom pushes up in the back seat and grabs my hand, tugging me to him.
He grips my chin, jerking his head toward my house. “Go.”
I hesitate, and he nods, letting me know they’re fine, and they don’t have to remind me they’re only a call away because I already know.
My palm falls to his chest and I take a deep breath.
I head inside, prepared for her wrath, and counting down the minutes until she’s gone again, but as I pass through the threshold of the door, dread cools my veins.
Her luggage is lined along the floor in perfect precision, the golden LV logo shining with pathetic pride in our direction, and I beg the universe to offer any other reason for all her things being here, other than what’s running through my mind.
She can’t possibly be moving back in.
I can’t live under the same roof as her, not anymore.
Not since I’ve been here and remembered what it meant to breathe easy and just... be. No round-the-clock primping staff or stupid social calendar that she herself can’t be bothered with but forces us to attend. The Friday dinner parties, Saturday charity balls, and Sunday country club appearances.
Only as I step closer to her, the universe answers my manifested thought with a nasty little twist.
A shiny, golden J, a mirror of the one dangling from my keys, hangs from the side of each piece of luggage, and I realize.
This isn’t her set, but mine.
They’re the very suitcases that I flew into California with.
My stomach flips. “Mom...”
She blinks, and just like that, the anger is hidden, buried. She smiles. “Sweep your room, dear. Make sure we’ve got everything you need.”
Panic punches me in the gut and my palm flattens over my stomach. “Mom, I’m not going back to Florida.”
She laughs, waving me off nonchalantly. “Of course, you’re not, don’t be silly.”
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out, and she sighs, her smile still there but close-lipped. She walks to me, failing to hide her disappointment in my singularly layered foundation.
“You are not going back to Florida, Jameson,” she assures me, and my shoulders settle, but then she speaks again, and this time with a fixed smile. “You are moving in with Anthony.”
I’m almost positive I stand frozen, unblinking for far longer than should be possible, but when Tanner suddenly appears and begins rolling my suitcases out the door, I snap out of it.
Rather loudly, in fact.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” I scream. “Tell me you’re actually joking. This has to be a joke.”
She folds her hands behind her back, rounding the table as she would a desk in a courtroom. Her eyes are calm, her shoulders strong and face as smooth as Botox can accomplish.
“Did you see Anthony this weekend?” she asks.
“Oh course, I—” I snap, but my mind freezes. Wait.
After the dance, everything with Ransom, I needed a damn day.
One day, and I...
My eyes meet my mother’s, and she juts her chin and I know exactly what she’s repeating in her mind.
Your choices decide your consequence...
She’s serious.
“You really think I’m going to go live with a man I hardly know—”
“What better way to get to know him?”
“I’m not supposed to marry him until next summer!” I shout. “Next. Summer. Mom, what happens if this backfires on you, and he decides he doesn’t want me in that time?”
She says nothing and my breathing grows rapid.
I shake my head. “I’ll leave,” I tell her. “When you go back to Florida, I’ll be back here, and what are you going to do, come home again?” A humorless laugh escapes me. “We both know how long that will last. You can’t possibly miss work for more than a nonstop flight’s time, can you?”
In my mind, I won, and everything is fine, but she doesn’t look shocked or upset. She’s not at a loss.
I know my mother’s lawyer face, the one she uses when she’s caught off guard, scrambling in her mind for a way to flip things in her favor. It would likely rival the Grim Reaper’s dead eyes, as if she holds a secret that you’re not privy to, as if she already has you on the hook and you don’t know it, but the intense way her green eyes pierce yours makes you more inclined to confess your darkest secrets.
She would have a heart attack if she knew mine.
But that isn’t the face I’m getting.
What I get is a small grin, one that screams what we’ve always known, yet again.
I am my mother’s daughter, and she knows my moves before I make them. It’s all right there, written in the gleam of her eyes.
She lifts her purse from the kitchen table, her nose turning up when she sees the slight ring of a cup shimmering on the glass top.
She focuses on her phone, speaking to me while tending to things much more important, her emails. “You’ll find your keys no longer work, nor your code, and your cards are no longer active. A new one has been ordered and there’s two thousand dollars in an envelope in the side pocket of your traveler bag to use until it arrives on Monday.” Her eyes lift to mine. “The card will be delivered to Anthony’s home, your new home.”